Marios M. Polycarpou

MARIOS M. POLYCARPOU is a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Director of the KIOS Research Center for Intelligent Systems and Networks at the University of Cyprus. He received the B.A. degree in Computer Science and the B.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering both from Rice University, Houston, TX, USA in 1987, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, in 1989 and 1992 respectively. Prior to joining the University of Cyprus as founding Department Chair in 2001, he was Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. His teaching and research interests are in intelligent systems and networks, adaptive and cooperative control systems, computational intelligence, fault diagnosis and distributed agents. Dr. Polycarpou has published more than 250 articles in refereed journals, edited books and refereed conference proceedings, and co-authored 6 books. He is also the holder of 6 patents.

Prof. Polycarpou is a Fellow of the IEEE and and served as the President of the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society between Jan. 2012 – Dec. 2013. He has served as the Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems between 2004-2010. He has been invited as Keynote Plenary Speaker at more than 35 international conferences and was an IEEE Distinguished Lecturer in computational intelligence. He participated in more than 60 research projects/grants, funded by several agencies and industry in Europe and the United States. In 2011, Prof. Polycarpou was awarded the prestigious European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grant.

Nikhil R. Pal

Nikhil R. Pal is a Professor in the Electronics and Communication Sciences Unit of the Indian Statistical Institute. His current research interest includes bioinformatics, brain science, fuzzy logic, pattern analysis, neural networks, and evolutionary computation.

He was the Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Fuzzy Systems for the period January 2005-December 2010. He has served/been serving on the editorial /advisory board/ steering committee of several journals including the International Journal of Approximate Reasoning, Applied Soft Computing, Neural Information Processing—Letters and Reviews, International Journal of Knowledge-Based Intelligent Engineering Systems, International Journal of Neural Systems, Fuzzy Sets and Systems ,International Journal of Intelligent Computing in Medical Sciences and Image Processing, Fuzzy Information and Engineering : An International Journal, IEEE Transactions on Fuzzy Systems and the IEEE Transactions on Systems Man and Cybernetics—B.

He has given many plenary/keynote speeches in different premier international conferences in the area of computational intelligence. He has served as the General Chair, Program Chair, and co-Program chair of several conferences.

He was a Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society (CIS) and was a member of the Administrative Committee of the IEEE CIS. At present he is the Vice President for Publications of the IEEE CIS. 

He is a Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, India, a Fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineering, a Fellow of the Indian National Science Academy, a Fellow of the International Fuzzy Systems Association (IFSA), and a Fellow of the IEEE, USA. More information can be found at:www.isical.ac.in/~nikhil

ALICE E. SMITH

ALICE E. SMITH is the W. Allen and Martha Reed Professor of the Industrial and Systems Engineering Department at Auburn University, where she served as Department Chair from 1999-2011. She also has a joint appointment with the Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering. Previously, she was on the faculty of the Department of Industrial Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh from 1991-99, which she joined after industrial experience with Southwestern Bell Corporation. Dr. Smith has degrees from Rice University, Saint Louis University and Missouri University of Science and Technology.

For accomplishments in research, education and service she was named the H. Allen and Martha Reed Endowed Professor in 2012. Dr. Smith was awarded the IIE Albert G. Holzman Distinguished Educator Award in 2012 and the INFORMS WORMS Award for the Advancement of Women in OR/MS in 2009. Dr. Smith was named the Philpott‐ WestPoint Stevens Distinguished Professor in 2001, received the Senior Research Award of the College of Engineering at Auburn University in 2001 and the University of Pittsburgh School of Engineering Board of Visitors Faculty Award for Research and Scholarly Activity in 1996. She has served as Chair of the Council of Industrial Engineering Academic Department Heads and as President of the INFORMS Association of Chairs of Operations Research Departments.

Dr. Smith holds one U.S. patent and several international patents and has authored more than 200 publications which have garnered over 2,000 citations and an H Index of 20 (ISI Web of Science). She won the E. L. Grant Best Paper Awards in 1999 and in 2006, and the William A. J. Golomski Best Paper Award in 2002. Several of her papers are among the most highly cited in their respective journals including the 2nd most cited paper of IEEE Transactions on Reliability and the 2nd most cited paper of Reliability Engineering & System Safety. Dr. Smith is an Area Editor of both INFORMS Journal on Computing and Computers & Operations Research and an Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation.

Dr. Smith has been a principal investigator on over $6 million of sponsored research. Her research in analysis, modeling and optimization of complex systems has been funded by NASA, U.S. Department of Defense, Missile Defense Agency, NIST, U.S. Department of Transportation, Lockheed Martin, Adtranz (now Bombardier Transportation), the Ben Franklin Technology Center of Western Pennsylvania and U.S. National Science Foundation, from which she has been awarded 16 grants including a CAREER grant in 1995 and an ADVANCE Leadership grant in 2001. Her industrial partners on sponsored research projects have included DaimlerChrysler Electronics, Eljer Plumbingware, Extrude Hone, Ford Motor and Crucible Compaction Metals. International research collaborations have been sponsored by Japan, Turkey, United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Egypt, South Korea, Iraq, China, Colombia, Chile, Algeria and the U.S., and by the Institute of International Education. In 2011 she was named a Fulbright Specialist candidate and in 2013 was a Fulbright Senior Scholar at Bilkent University in Turkey.

Five of her doctoral students are in tenured positions at U.S. universities and two of these are NSF CAREER awardees. A further five doctoral students are tenured or tenure track faculty members at foreign institutions. Dr. Smith is a fellow of the Institute of Industrial Engineers, a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and of the Society of Women Engineers, a member of Tau Beta Pi and the Institute for Operations Research and Management Science, and a Registered Professional Engineer in Alabama and Pennsylvania. She was elected to serve on the Administrative Committee of the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society from 2013-15 and as IIE Senior Vice President – Publications from 2014-17.