Gabriela Ochoa

I'm a Senior Research Fellow in Computing Sciences. My work lies at the interface of Computing Science and Operational Research with emphasis on adaptive systems, hyper-heuristics, and evolutionary computation.  I'm interested in developing self-managed software systems that provide high-level abstractions. Such systems should be able to configure themselves on the fly, automatically adapting to the changing problem conditions. I'm also committed to applying search and optimisation to challenging real-world problems; and understanding the principles and foundations of these techniques. I was involved in founding the Self-* Search (SS) track at GECCO, and proposed and co-organised the first Cross-domain Heuristic Search Challenge (CHeSC 2011).  I'm a member of the CHORDS research Group, the  DAASE project;  and an associate editor of the Evolutionary Computation Journal (MIT Press).

Online Contributions

Lindenmayer Systems

HyFlex and the Cross-Domain Competition

Tutorials

• Hyper-heuristics and Cross-domain Optimization, Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO 2012)
• Automated Heuristic Design, Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO 2011), with Dr. Matthew Hyde and Prof. Edmund K. Burke
• Fitness Landscapes and Graphs: Multimodularity, Ruggedness and Neutrality, IEEE World Congress on Computational Intelligence (WCCI 2010), with Dr. Sebastien Verel

Journal Papers

1. E. K. Burke, M. Gendreau, M. Hyde, G. Kendall, G. Ochoa, E. Ozcan and R. Qu (2013) Hyper-heuristics: A Survey of the State of the Art,  Journal of the Operational Research Society. [bib entry]
   
2. E. López-Camacho, G. Ochoa,  H. Terashima-Marin, E. K.  Burke (2013) An Effective Heuristic for the Two-dimensional Irregular Bin Packing Problem, Annals of Operations Research. [Online version] [bib entry]
3. E. López-Camacho, H. Terashima-Marín, G. Ochoa, and S. E. Conant-Pablos (2013) Understanding the structure of bin packing problems through principal component analysis.  International Journal of Production Economics. Special Issue on Cutting and Packing, 2013. DOI: 10.1016/j.ijpe.2013.04.041. [Online Version][bib entry].
4. G.L. Pappa, G. Ochoa, M.R. Hyde, A.A. Freitas, J. Woodward, J. Swan (2013) Contrasting meta-learning and hyper-heuristic research: the role of evolutionary algorithms, Genetic Programming and Evolvable Machines. [Online version] [bib entry]
5. G. Ochoa, M. Villasana (2013) Population-based optimization of cytostatic/cytotoxic combination cancer chemotherapy, Soft Computing. Vol 17, No. 6, pp. 913-924. DOI:10.1007/s00500-013-1043-5  [Online version] [bib entry]
6. J. Swan, G. Ochoa,  G. Kendall, M. Edjvet (2012) Fitness Landscapes and the Andrew-Curtis Conjecture,  International Journal of Algebra and Computation, Vol. 2, No. 22, pp. 125009 (13 pages)
7. S. Verel, G. Ochoa, M. Tomassini (2011) Local Optima Networks of NK Landscapes with Neutrality,  IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation,Vol 15, No. 6, pp. 783-797. link to IEEXplore.
8. F. Daolio, M. Tomassini, S. Verel, G. Ochoa (2011) Communities of Minima in Local Optima Networks of Combinatorial Spaces, Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Vol. 390, pp. 1684-1694.
   
9. J. A. Vazquez-Rodriguez, G. Ochoa (2011) On the Automatic Discovery of Variants of the NEH Procedure for Flowshop Scheduling Using Genetic Programming, Journal of the Operations Research Society, 62(2), pp. 381-396, link to Journal.
10. M. Villasana, G. Ochoa, S. Aguilar (2010) Modeling and Optimization of Combined Cytostatic and Cytotoxic Chemotherapy, Artificial Intelligence in Medicine, vol. 50, pp. 163 - 173.
11. E. Özcan, M. Mısır, G. Ochoa, E. K. Burke (2010). A Reinforcement Learning - Great-Deluge Hyper-heuristic for Examination Timetabling, International Journal of Applied Metaheuristic Computing (IJAMC), 1:1, pp 39-59.
12. M. Tomassini, S. Verel, G. Ochoa (2008) Complex-Network Analysis of Combinatorial Spaces: The NK landscape case, Physical Review E, Vol.78, No.6. ( link to journal)
13. G. Ochoa, M. Villasana, and E. K. Burke (2007) An Evolutionary Approach to Cancer Chemotherapy Scheduling, Genetic Programming and Evolvable Machines Journal, 8:4, Springer, pp 301-318.
14. G. Ochoa (2006) Error Thresholds in Genetic Algorithms. Evolutionary Computation Journal, 14:2, pp 157-182,  MIT Press.
15. M. Villasana, G. Ochoa (2004) Heuristic Design of Cancer Quemotherapies. IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation, 8:6, pp 513-521.
16. G. Ochoa, K. Jaffe (1999) On Sex, Parasites, and the Red Queen.  Journal of Theoretical Biology, 199, pp 1-9.

 Selected Conference Papers

• G. Ochoa, J. Walker, M. Hyde, and T. Curtois (2012) Adaptive Evolutionary Algorithms and Extensions to the HyFlex Hyper-heuristic Framework. Parallel Problam Solving from Nature (PPSN 2012), Lecture Notes in Conputer Science, Springer, pp. 418-427.
• G. Ochoa, M. R. Hyde, T. Curtois, J.A Vazquez-Rodriguez, J. D. Walker, M. Gendreau, G.Kendall, B. McCollum, A. J. Parkes, S. Petrovic, E. K. Burke (2012) HyFlex: A Benchmark Framework for Cross-Domain Heuristic Search. European Conference on Evolutionary Computation in Combinatorial Optimization (EvoCOP 2012), LNCS, Vol. 7245, Springer, pp. 136-147.
• D. Walker, G. Ochoa, M. Gendreau, and E. K. Burke (2012) Vehicle routing and adaptive iterated local search within the HyFlex hyper-heuristic framework. International Conference on Learning and Intelligent Optimization (LION 6), Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Springer, pp. 265-276.
• E. K. Burke, T. Curtois, M. Hyde, G. Kendall, G. Ochoa, S. Petrovic, J. A. Vazquez-
  Rodriguez and M. Gendreau (2010) Iterated Local Search vs. Hyper-heuristics: Towards General-purpose Search Algorithms, IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation (CEC 2010), IEEE PRess, pp. 3073-3080.
• G. Ochoa, R. Qu, E. K. Burke (2009) Analyzing the Landscape of a Graph Based Hyper-heuristic for Timetabling Problems. Proceedings of Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO-09), ACM, pp. 341-348.
• G. Ochoa, M. Tomassini, S. Verel, C. Darabos (2008) A Study of NK Landscapes' Basins and Local Optima Networks. Proceedings of Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO-08), ACM, pp. 555-562. Note: best paper nomination.
• G. Ochoa, K. Jaffe (2006) Assortative Mating Drastically Alters the Magnitude of Error Thresholds. Parallel Problem Solving from Nature (PPSN IX), Lecture Notes in Computer Science 4193, pp 890-899, Springer-Verlag, Berlin. Note: best paper award.
• G. Escuela, G. Ochoa, N. Krasnogor. (2005) Evolving L-Systems to Capture Protein Structure Native Conformations. 8th European Conference on Genetic Programming (EuroGP 2005), Lecture Notes in Computer Science 3447, pp 73-83,Springer-Verlag, Berlin. Site. Note: best paper nomination.
• G. Ochoa, I. Harvey, H. Buxton (1999)  On Recombination and Optimal Mutation Rates. Proceedings of Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO-99), pp 488-495, Morgan Kaufmann, San Francisco, CA.
• G. Ochoa  (1998) On Genetic Algorithms and Lindenmayer Systems. Parallel Problem Solving From Nature (PPSN V), Lecture Notes in Computer Science 1498, pp 335-344, Springer-Verlag, Berlin.

Book Chapters

1. G. Ochoa (2011) [in Spanish] Introduccion a la Computacion Evolutiva y la Morfogenesis Artificial, Evolution, Bicentenario del Nacimiento de Charles Darwin, Editorial Equinoccio.
   
2. E. K. Burke,  M. Hyde, G. Kendall, G. Ochoa, E. Ozcan, and J. Woodward (2010). A Classification of Hyper-heuristics Approaches, Handbook of Metaheuristics,  International Series in Operations Research & Management Science, M. Gendreau and J-Y Potvin (Eds.), Springer, pp.449-468.
3. E. K. Burke, M. R. Hyde, G. Kendall,  G. Ochoa, E. Ozcan and J. R. Woodward (2009)  Exploring Hyper-heuristic Methodologies with Genetic Programming,  Computational Intelligence: Collaboration, Fusion and Emergence, In C. Mumford and L. Jain (eds.), Intelligent Systems Reference Library, Springer, pp. 177-201.
4. G. Ochoa,  I. Harvey  (1999) Recombination and Error Thresholds in Finite Populations. Foundations of Genetic Algorithms 5 (FOGA 5), Edited by Wolfgang Banzhaf and Colin Reeves, pp 245-264, Morgan Kaufmann, San Francisco, CA.