Studies:

• Summer 2000, MS in Computer Science, Faculty of Computer Science, Al. I. Cuza University, Iasi, Romania
  GPA 3.66
  Thesis: A Social Mutation Operator for Genetic Algorithms
  Advisor: Henri Luchian
• Summer 1999, BS in Computer Science, Faculty of Computer Science, Al. I. Cuza University, Iasi, Romania
  GPA 3.97
  Thesis: Cross-clustering Using Genetic Algorithms
  Advisor: Henri Luchian

Research Interests:

• Artificial Intelligence
• Evolutionary Computation
  • Co-evolution -- Analysis methods for evolutionary and co-evolutionary algorithms -- Generative representations (cellular automata, Lindenmayer-systems ...) -- Evolutionary design
• Complex adaptive systems / Multi-agent systems / Agent-based Modeling / Simulations
• Adaptation and self-organization
• Dynamical systems and chaos
• Algorithms and complexity

Academic Experience:

• January 2004 - Present: Research Assistant, Evolutionary Computation Laboratory, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA, sponsored by the US Army
• September 2003 - October 2003: Computer Instructor, Anderson National College, Vancouver, BC, Canada
• June 2002 - August 2003: Research Assistant, Evolutionary Computation Laboratory, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA, sponsored by NASA
• Sept 2001 - May 2002: Teaching Assistant, Computer Science Department, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA
• July 2000 - August 2001: Research Assistant, Learning Agents Laboratory, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA, sponsored by DARPA

Industrial Experience:

• October 2003 - January 2004: Software Engineer R&D, Canonline Media Corporation, part of NS8, Vancouver, BC, Canada
• August 1999 - July 2000: Software Developer, Artinfo SRL, Iasi, Romania

Merit:

• Best Paper Nomination for Coevolution Track at the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference, Seattle, WA, USA, 2006
• Best Paper Award for Coevolution Track at the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference, Washington, D.C., USA, 2005
• Socrates Scholarship: one semester spent at Ecolè Informatique, Université des Sciences et Technologies, Lille, France
• Multiple prizes in online programming competitions at TopCoder (see profile), 2002 - 2004
• 1st place (with team) at the John Hopkins site of the 2001 Mid-Atlantic Regionals of the ACM International Programming Contest (10th place overall), Johns Hopkins University, USA, 2001
• 3rd place (with team) at the National Informatics College Contest, Craiova, Romania, 1998
• 1st place (with team) at the G. Moisil National Informatics College Contest, Iasi, Romania, 1997
• Yearly Merit Scholarship, Al. I. Cuza University, Iasi, Romania, 1995-2000

Refereed Publications: downloads here

• Elena Popovici and Kenneth De Jong. A Dynamical Systems Analysis of Collaboration Methods in Cooperative Co-evolution. In Coevolutionary and Coadaptive Systems Workshop at the AAAI Fall Symposia -- AAAIFS-2005. (c) AAAI Press.
• Elena Popovici and Kenneth De Jong. Relationships between Internal and External Metrics in Co-evolution. In Proceedings of the Congress on Evolutionary Computation -- CEC-2005. (c) IEEE.
• Elena Popovici and Kenneth De Jong. Understanding Cooperative Co-evolutionary Dynamics via Simple Fitness Landscapes. In Proceedings of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference -- GECCO-2005. H.-G. Beyer et al., Eds. (c) ACM.
• Elena Popovici and Kenneth De Jong. Understanding Competitive Co-evolutionary Dynamics via Fitness Landscapes. In Artificial Multiagent Learning Workshop at the AAAI Fall Symposia -- AAAIFS-04. S. Luke, Ed. (c) AAAI Press.
• Oguejiofor, E., Kicinger, R., Popovici, E., Arciszewski, T., DeJong, K. Intelligent Tutoring Systems: An Ontology Based Approach. In International Journal of Computing in Architecture, Engineering, and Construction, Vol. 2, No. 2, 2004.
• Elena Popovici and Kenneth De Jong. Understanding EA Dynamics via Population Fitness Distributions. In Proceedings of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference -- GECCO-2003. E. Cantu-Paz, Ed.(c) Springer.
• Mihai Boicu, Gheorghe Tecuci, Bogdan Stanescu, Gabriel C. Balan and Elena Popovici. Ontologies and the Knowledge Acquisition Bottleneck. In Proceedings of the Workshop on Ontologies and Information Sharing at the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence -- IJCAI-2001. (c) AAAI Press.

Conference Presentations:

• A Dynamical Systems Analysis of Collaboration Methods in Cooperative Co-evolution. At the Coevolutionary and Coadaptive Systems Workshop at the AAAI Fall Symposia -- AAAIFS-2005.
• Relationships between Internal and External Metrics in Co-evolution. At the Congress on Evolutionary Computation -- CEC-2005.
• Understanding Cooperative Co-evolutionary Dynamics via Simple Fitness Landscapes. At the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference -- GECCO-2005.
• Understanding Competitive Co-evolutionary Dynamics via Fitness Landscapes. At the Artificial Multiagent Learning Workshop at the AAAI Fall Symposia -- AAAIFS-04.
• Understanding EA Dynamics via Population Fitness Distributions. At the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference -- GECCO-2003. Poster presentation.

Lectures:

• Coevolution Tutorial - co-author (with Paul Wiegand) and presenter at the Congress on Evolutionary Computation -- CEC-2005, Edinburgh, U.K., 2005.
• Landscapes for Evolutionary Algorithms - author and presenter - 2003 Summer Lecture Series, Evolutionary Computation Lab, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA, 2003.

Invited Talks:

• An Introduction to Coevolutionary Algorithms and Their Dynamics. - Beta Lab, Computer Science Department, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada, 2004.
• Intelligent Tutoring Systems: An Ontology Based Approach - The Hierarchical Research and Learning Network Demo Day, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA, USA, 2003.

Technical Reports: downloads here

• Elena Popovici. Evolving Families of Designs Using L-systems - Technical Report, Computer Science Department at George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA, 2005.

Academic Service:

• Reviewer: Annals of Operations Research Special Issue on Stochastic Algorithms, 2004, (c) Springer.
• Reviewer: ACM Symposium on Applied Computing, 2004, (c) ACM.
• Student Volunteer: IJCAI-2001, GECCO-2003, GECCO-2004, GECCO-2005, CEC-2005, AAAI-FS-2005
• Student Member: AAAI, IEEE, SIGEVO

Languages:

• English (fluent)
• French (good)
• Romanian (native)