MICHAEL AFFENZELLER has published several papers, journal articles and books dealing with theoretical and practical aspects of evolutionary computation, genetic algorithms, and meta-heuristics in general. In 2001 he received his PhD in engineering sciences and in 2004 he received his habilitation in applied systems engineering, both from the Johannes Kepler University of Linz, Austria. Michael Affenzeller is professor at the Upper Austria University of Applied Sciences, Campus Hagenberg, and head of the research group HEAL. From October 2014 to August 2022 he served as the head of studies for the Master degree program Software Engineering and as vice dean for R&D at the faculty of informatics, communications and media. Between 2019 and 2022 Michael Affenzeller acted as the scientific head of the Softwarepark Hagenberg. Since 2022 he took on the role of Provost of the Upper Austrian University of Applied Sciences.