{"id":3038,"date":"2021-09-03T04:04:49","date_gmt":"2021-09-03T04:04:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alife.org\/?p=3038"},"modified":"2021-09-10T20:22:41","modified_gmt":"2021-09-10T20:22:41","slug":"isal-board-elections-2021-candidate-statements","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alife.org\/isal-board-elections-2021-candidate-statements\/","title":{"rendered":"ISAL Board Elections 2021: Candidate Statements"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

ISAL is electing six new members<\/strong> to its board of directors<\/a>, to replace the current directors whose terms are expiring. 13 society members are standing for election, as listed below. Follow the links for each candidate\u2019s election statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All society members will shortly be contacted with further information regarding the election date and voting procedure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


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<\/span>Hiroki Sayama<\/a><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Background<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

I am a Full Professor in the Department of Systems Science and Industrial Engineering at Binghamton University, State University of New York, USA, where I also serve as the Graduate Program Director of the Systems Science program and the Director of the Center for Collective Dynamics of Complex Systems (CoCo). My academic journey started in ALife; I began working on ALife models implementing artificial death in virtual ecosystem simulations for my B.Sc\/M.Sc. theses (presented at ALIFE V in Kyoto), and then I developed the very first evolvable variant of Langton’s self-reproducing loops (evoloops) for my D.Sc. dissertation (earlier version was presented at ALIFE VI in Los Angeles). While my research portfolio has since expanded widely to cover complex systems, network science, computational social science and other fields, I always consider the ALife community as my “home”, and therefore, it is quite an honor for me to be nominated for the ISAL Board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Statement of Goals<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

I believe ISAL should dynamically adapt and evolve as related fields and technologies advance. To promote such dynamism, it is important to keep fresh bloods and views coming in and playing key roles in determining the Society’s directions. Therefore, I will not push forward my personal views or priorities, but rather, I will make it my meta-priority to make it easier for junior researchers to voice and influence the Society’s directions. Furthermore, I will serve as a channel for the Society to reach out to other academic\/scientific\/professional communities, including (but not limited to): complex systems, statistical physics, network science, computational social science, engineering, data science, management science, organizational science, education science, etc. Basically, my goals are to offer my background, experience, knowledge, perspective and professional connections to ISAL as available resources so that the next generation of ALifers can make use of them to be more successful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/span>Yaochu Jin<\/a><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Background<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

I was active in the Artificial Life research ten years ago when I worked on brain-body co-evolution using evolutionary developmental systems at Honda Research. After I moved Surrey, my research focus has been shifted to evolutionary optimization for engineering design and computational modeling of neural plasticity. Most recently, I was awarded the Humboldt Professorship for AI and will move to Germany. There, I’ll again have the opportunity working on artificial life, since I am very much interested in studying evolutionary developmental systems and how they have contributed to the emergence of life and human intelligence. I believe understanding life and human intelligence is indispensable for pushing AI beyond its boundaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Statement of Goals<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

If I am elected, I will focus on the following:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. Increase the visibility of the artificial life research community as a part of the AI research. This is important not only for the further growth of Alife itself, but also for the further development of AI. To this end, I am going to organise workshops or special sessions at conferences in AI, CIS and robotics. In addition special issues will also be organised in relevant journals;<\/li>
  2. Attract younger researchers to the research area of Alife. This will be achieved by organising summer schools, university courses and publishing books related to Alife.<\/li>
  3. Promote the Alife research activities in particular regions such as India, China, and South America.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    <\/span>Alastair Channon<\/a><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    Background<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

    I am a Reader and head of the Evolutionary Systems Research Group at Keele University, UK. Since the early 1990s, I have been excited about life-as-it-could-be and open-ended evolution, both for generalizing our understanding of evolution and for the potential of open-ended processes to generate artificial intelligence. I have published in many ALife and related conference proceedings, and in journals including Artificial Life, Genetic Programming and Evolvable Machines, Nature Communications and PLOS Biology. My neuroevolutionary system Geb was the first ALife system to be classified as exhibiting open-ended evolutionary dynamics according to Bedau and Packard\u02bcs evolutionary activity measures. I co-organized, with Mark Bedau, Tim Taylor, Norman Packard and others, the four workshops on open-ended evolution at ECAL 2015, ALife XV, ALIFE 2018 and ALIFE 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Statement of Goals<\/h4>\n\n\n\n