Name

Erik D. Goodman

Headshot

Affiliation

Director, BEACON Center for the Study of Evolution in Action; Prof., ECE, ME, CSE

A brief bio

Erik D. Goodman is PI and Director of the BEACON Center for the Study of Evolution in Action, an NSF Science and Technology Center headquartered at Michigan State University, funded at $47.5 million for 2010-20. BEACON now has a very diverse membership of 583, including evolutionary biologists and computer scientists/engineers studying evolutionary computation or digital evolution. Goodman received the Ph.D., computer and communication sciences, University of Michigan, 1972. He joined MSU’s faculty in Electrical Engineering and Systems Science in 1971, was promoted to full professor in 1984, and also holds appointments in Mechanical Engineering and in Computer Science and Engineering, in which he has guided many Ph.D. students. He directed the Case Center for Computer-Aided Engineering and Manufacturing from 1983-2002, and founded and directed MSU’s industrially sponsored Manufacturing Research Consortium from 1993-2003. He co-founded MSU’s Genetic Algorithms Research and Applications Group (GARAGe) in 1993. In 1999, he co-founded Red Cedar Technology, Inc., (now a subsidiary of Siemens) which develops design optimization software, and was Vice President for Technology until BEACON was founded in 2010. He was chosen Michigan Distinguished Professor of the Year, 2009, by the Presidents Council, State Universities of Michigan. He was Chair of the Executive Board and a Senior Fellow of the International Society for Genetic and Evolutionary Computation, 2003-2005, and was founding chair of the ACM’s SIG on Genetic and Evolutionary Computation (SIGEVO) in 2005.

Title

Evolutionary Computation—A Strong Basis for Industry-University Cooperation

Abstract

Engineers in industry routinely face difficult design problems—both product and process. Most design tools cannot generate truly innovative solutions, but evolutionary computation has demonstrated that capability in many situations. Goodman will describe his experiences with General Motors, Red Cedar Technology (now a part of Siemens), and the BEACON Center’s many interactions with industry. He will discuss how strength in evolutionary computation at a university provides a strong benefit to local industry, and the importance of industrial problems in driving progress in evolutionary computation.