Risto Miikkulainen
Professor
Studies neuroevolution and biologically inspired computation, evolving neural networks for control, games and AI design problems.
Risto Miikkulainen's lab at UT Austin works on computational neuroscience & cognition. 35 papers since 2023, 3 at top venues, mostly ICLR and NeurIPS. 5 PhD students and 1 master's student. 62 alumni. Applications close .
At a glance
- papers, 2023–2026
- 9/ year
- at T1 venues
- 9%
- PhD students
- 5
- MS students
- 1
- alumni listed
- 62
Papers by yearfrom the lab homepage, 2023–2026
- 7 papers2026 · T1 0 · collecting
- 13 papers2025 · T1 1
- 7 papers2024 · T1 2
- 8 papers2023 · T1 0
T1 venuesOtherVenues: ICLR, NeurIPS, npj Digital Medicine, Science
Research focuspaper titles that use each topic's words
- Computational neuroscience & cognition1 paper
- computation1 paper
- biologically0 papers
- inspired0 papers
- games0 papers
Paper list
From the lab homepage.
20267 papers
- To Appear In Proceedings of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation ConferenceEvolution With Purpose: Hierarchy-Informed Optimization of Whole-Brain Models (opens in a new tab)
- In Proceedings of the Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS 20...Fine-Tuning Language Models to Know What They Know (opens in a new tab)
- In Proceedings of the International Conference on Legal Knowledge and Information Systems (J...Legislating World-Model-Based Planning with Legal Reasoning (opens in a new tab)
- In Proceedings of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation ConferenceOptimizing Chlorination in Water Distribution Systems via Surrogate-assisted Neuroevolution (opens in a new tab)
- In Proceedings of the International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML Position Paper...Position: Hippocampal Explicit Memory Is the Cornerstone for AGI (opens in a new tab)
- npj Digital MedicinePredicting Bilingual Aphasia Treatment Outcomes Using Digital Twins: A Double-Blind Randomized Controlled Trial (opens in a new tab)
- In Proceedings of the Annual Computational Neuroscience Meeting (CNS* ) , September 20...Simulating bilingual naming in laterally-connected self-organizing maps (opens in a new tab)
202513 papers
- Environmental Data Science , 4:e30Discovering Effective Policies for Land-Use Planning with Neuroevolution (opens in a new tab)
- In Proceedings of the IEEE Congress on Evolutionary ComputationEffective Regularization Through Evolutionary Loss-Function Metalearning (opens in a new tab)
- In Proceedings of Machine Learning ResearchEvolutionary Surrogate-Assisted Prescription: Neuro-Symbolic Framework for Trustworthy Decisioning (opens in a new tab)
- In Proceedings of the AI for Accelerated Research Symposium , 3:108-112Gaining Insight into Brain Damage and Rehabilitation through Digital Twins (opens in a new tab)
- In Proceedings of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference Companion: Workshop on Evol...GPU-Accelerated Rule Evaluation and Evolution (opens in a new tab)
- CogSciHow the Stroop Effect Arises from Optimal Response Times in Laterally Connected Self-Organizing Maps (opens in a new tab)
- Stroke , 56:494-504Machine learning predictions of recovery in bilingual post-stroke aphasia: Aligning insights with clinical evidence (opens in a new tab)
- To Appear In Proceedings of the Artificial Life ConferenceNeural Cellular Automata for ARC-AGI (opens in a new tab)
- Science (T1)Neuroevolution Insights Into Biological Neural Computation (opens in a new tab)
- Cambridge, MA, . MIT Press.Neuroevolution: Harnessing Creativity in AI Agent Design (opens in a new tab)
- IJCAI WorkshopOptimizing the Design of an Artificial Pancreas to Improve Diabetes Management (opens in a new tab)
- In Proceedings of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference Companion: Workshop on Evol...Self-Organizing Models of Brain Wiring: Developmental Programs for Evolving Intelligence (opens in a new tab)
20247 papers
- Artificial Life , 30:359-276Domain-Independent Lifelong Problem Solving through Distributed Alife Actors (opens in a new tab)
- ACM Transactions on Evolutionary Learning and OptimizationEVOTER: Evolution of Transparent Explainable Rule-sets (opens in a new tab)
- AI Magazine :1-3, February . https://doi.org/10.1002/aaai.12155.Generative AI: An AI Paradigm Shift in the Making? (opens in a new tab)
- ICLR (T1)NeuroComb: Improving SAT Solving with Graph Neural Networks (opens in a new tab)
- NeurIPS (T1)Semantic Density: Uncertainty Quantification for Large Language Models through Confidence Measurement in Semantic Space (opens in a new tab)
- In Proceedings of the Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS ) ...Unlocking the Potential of Global Human Expertise (opens in a new tab)
- In Proceedings of the International Conference on Development and Learning (ICDL ) , 202...Using context to adapt to sensor drift (opens in a new tab)
20238 papers
- To Appear In Proceedings of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference , 972-980, 2...Accelerating Evolution Through Gene Masking and Distributed Search (opens in a new tab)
- In Proceedings of the Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS ) ...Efficient Activation Function Optimization through Surrogate Modeling (opens in a new tab)
- In W. Banzhaf, P. Machado, and M. Zhang, editors, Handbook of Evolutionary Machine Learning , ...Evolutionary Supervised Machine Learning (opens in a new tab)
- To Appear In R. Kozma, C. Alippi, Y. Choe, and F. Morabito, editors, Artificial Intelligence in t...Evolving Deep Neural Networks (opens in a new tab)
- To Appear In R. Kozma, C. Alippi, Y. Choe, and F. C. Morabito, editors, Artificial Intelligence i...Evolving GAN Formulations for Higher Quality Image Synthesis (opens in a new tab)
- Language Learning , ., . https://doi.org/10.1111/lang.12566.Modeling Bilingualism as a Dynamic Phenomenon in Healthy and Neurologically Affected Speakers Across the Lifespan (Commentary) (opens in a new tab)
- In Proceedings of the International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML- ) , . Al...Shortest Edit Path Crossover: A Theory-driven Solution to the Permutation Problem in Evolutionary Neural Architecture Search (opens in a new tab)
- In Manuel Cebral-Loureda, Elvira G. Rincon-Flores, and Gildardo Sanchez-Ante, editors, What AI Ca...What AI Can Do for Neuroscience: Understanding How the Brain Represents Word Meanings (opens in a new tab)
Where alumni went62 listed
Apply to UT AustinFall 2027
Computer Science PhD
- Round
- Single round (Dec 15)
- Opens
- GRE
- See program page
- English
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- Fee
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Not yet confirmed for this intake.
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