ALife XI

The Eleventh International Conference on the Simulation and Synthesis of Living Systems was a big success in general as well as for me personally. While the biggest ALife event to date, the conference was signified by a traditionally very low acceptance rate and a very high paper quality. Presenting my own work as a full conference paper was fantastic, and attending the meeting of the leading ALife researchers in the world was a stimulating and rewarding experience.

The presentation of my work on evolution of diversity and maintenance of reproductive isolation on Holey Fitness Landscapes went very well indeed. When I gave my first presentation on this topic (who would believe it - it's almost a year ago now), most of the audience looked at me with blank eyes. This time my presentation was followed by a vivid discussion that extended well after the end of the session. I had some very interesting comments. Some of these comments are well worth following up in future research, some of these comments were directed toward issues that I have looked at in the past, but did not have the time to treat properly during the presentation. This is very encouraging as it means that people have understood my message and have thought along similar lines as I did.

As the conference was most relevant to my work I spent more time in talks than I did at GECCO, and thus had less chance to experience Winchester's night life, but I still took the chance to explore some local pubs and to spend some time with a few very interesting people (see photos below). I strongly hope to be in regular touch with some on these people. The social aspect of the conference culminated into the conference dinner, and the unusually large number of sunglasses worn by the delegates the next day strongly suggested that I was by far not the only person who, to put it mildly, had a terrible headache the morning after the dinner. This included some famous researchers, which only emphasises the fact that this is a great community. I was very keen to attend the meeting of the international society for ALife that followed the closing session, but I was physically really not in the shape. The difference between me and all those other people with sunglasses was that the next day they did not have to take part in the London triathlon...

Photo albums related to this post:

• ALife XI Conference

Images: