In memoriam - Prof. Dr. Ingo Wegener, 1950-2008

Ingo Wegener passed away last November, see his obituary here: Nachruf/Obituary. He taught at University of Dortmund/TU Dortmund and ran a group of Evolutionary Algorithm researchers looking into the basic theory and run-time analysis of EAs. His papers and the basic approach of his 'school' have been very influential in my PhD research and he was quite encouraging of my proposed ideas. If at the end of our lives we are professionally remembered half as fondly as he will be then that is success.

Dual Purpose trip to Germany

I was recently in Germany for two purposes. The first was for the 'Theory of Evolutionary Algorithms' conference at Dagstuhl Castle in Saarland Germany. This was a joy as I was able to focus nearly entirely on my PhD research and dissertation progress. At this point I'm in the home stretch.. I think I have two provable theorems sketched out and a set of new tractable items to explore to finish off the meat of the dissertation.

The second week in Germany was a beer tourist adventure through Bavaria and Bohemia. We hit Munich on day one and drank expensive tourist beer, then took a train to the Czech Republic to see Plzen (home of Pilsener beer) and Budweiss (Ceske Budejovice - original home of Budweiser beer). Plzen was very interesting and Budweiss was an adventure of train & bus travel. Two days later we took a train back into Germany to Bamberg. Bamberg is stunningly beautiful and is the home of a wide selection of locally crafted smoked lager beers. More on this trip in future posts.