Ender Özcan is Professor of Computer Science and Operational Research with the Computational Optimisation and Learning (COL) Lab at the University of Nottingham, UK, and Director of the Faculty of Science Doctoral Training Centre in Artificial Intelligence. He is internationally recognised for pioneering research at the intersection of Computer Science, AI, and Operational Research, advancing computational optimisation, hyper-heuristics, and data-driven intelligent decision support. Prof Özcan has published over 180 refereed papers, with significant impact (FWCI: 1.74). He has served on the LANCS Executive Committee, as Deputy Director of EPSRC’s NATCOR, and holds roles including Senior Member of IEEE, Fellow of The OR Society, and member of EPSRC and FWO Peer Review Colleges. He has contributed to funded projects worth over £14M from bodies such as EPSRC, EC, The Royal Society, Innovate UK, and TUBITAK. Prof Özcan co-founded and co-chairs the EURO Working Group on Data Science Meets Optimisation. He is Associate Editor for the Journal of Scheduling and International Journal of Applied Metaheuristic Computing, and serves on editorial boards of Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence and IJICC. He is Chair of the International Conference Series on the Practice and Theory of Automated Timetabling (PATAT).