Research Updates, Press Coverage, Robot Videos, and Positions Available

[Jeff Clune]

Hello all,

Here is an update on major developments recently

• I published a new paper with Jean-Baptiste Mouret and Hod Lipson on why modules evolve in biological networks, such as neural networks, genetic regulatory networks, metabolic networks and protein-protein interaction networks.  Clune J, Mouret J-B, Lipson H (2013) The evolutionary origins of modularity. Proceedings of the Royal Society B. 280: 20122863. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2012.2863
• Many press outlets wrote about that work, including
• Fast Company: http://www.fastcompany.com/3005313/evolved-brains-robots-creep-closer-animal-learning
• National Geographic: http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2013/01/30/the-parts-of-life/
• MIT's Technology Review: http://www.technologyreview.com/view/428504/computer-scientists-reproduce-the-evolution-of-evolvability/ 
• Cornell Chronicle: http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Jan13/modNetwork.html
• ScienceDaily: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/01/130130082300.htm
• A team of us published a paper showing that HyperNEAT produces the best gait yet for a real robot. 
• On the robot platform we tested on, HyperNEAT outperformed nine other machine learning algorithms from three previous papers to produce the fasted gait yet recorded for this robot. I think this result is great for our community because it shows that HyperNEAT can perform great--and outperform traditional machine learning algorithms--on difficult, real-world engineering problems, instead of just in simulation and on diagnostic/toy problems. 
• Cite: Lee S, Yosinski J, Glette K, Lipson H, Clune J. 2013. Evolving gaits for physical robots with the HyperNEAT generative encoding: the benefits of simulation. Applications of Evolutionary Computing. Springer. 
• PDF: http://jeffclune.com/publications/2013-LeeEtal-HyperNEAT+Sim.pdf
• Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2ADU8YWIug
• On NPR's Academic Minute, I summarize my recent paper in the American Naturalist about ontogeny recapitulating phylogeny: http://wamc.org/post/dr-jeff-clune-cornell-university-evolution-and-embryology
• Hod Lipson has a nice article on 3D printing that mentions EndlessForms.com: http://jeffclune.com/media/press/EndlessFormsInMechEnginMag.pdf
• I still have open positions in my lab. Please let anyone potentially interested know: http://jeffclune.com/positionsAvailable.html
• I began my position as an assistant professor at the University of Wyoming. I love it here so far. 

Thanks all. Please let me know if you have any questions. 

Best regards,
Jeff Clune

Assistant Professor
Computer Science

University of Wyoming
jeff...@uwyo.edu
jeffclune.com