Alberto Herran Gonzalez

Associate Professor

Bio

Alberto Herrán González is an Associate Professor (Profesor Contratado Doctor) in the Computer Science Department at Universidad Rey Juan Carlos (URJC) and currently serves as Director of Faculty Development (Director Académico de Fomento y Desarrollo de Personal Docente e Investigador). He is one of the senior researchers of the Group for Research on Algorithms For Optimization (GRAFO), a high-performance research group in optimization algorithms at URJC.

He has been cited by 565 publications and has extensive experience in both academia and industry. He previously worked at the Computer Architecture and Automatic Control Department in the Faculty of Physics Sciences at Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM), first with a collaboration grant (2001), and later with a FPI grant (2003). He has been teaching since 2004 and served as Assistant Professor at CES Felipe II from 2006 to 2014. He was also a Visiting Professor of the MEng. in Systems Engineering and Automation at Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED) from 2010 to 2016.

Research Focus

Metaheuristics: His research interests focus on the development of heuristic and metaheuristic algorithms to solve hard combinatorial optimization problems, with expertise in Global Search Metaheuristics including Iterated Local Search, Taboo Search, and Simulated Annealing.

Evolutionary Computation: He specializes in Genetic Algorithms, Memetic GAs, and Multi-Agent GAs, with recognition including an EvoStar Award for Outstanding Contribution to Evolutionary Computation in Europe.

Optimization: His work encompasses Mathematical Programming, Planning and Scheduling, and Multi-Objective Optimization across various application domains.

Previous Research Areas: He has also worked in Modeling and Simulation of Dynamic Systems and Model Predictive Control, demonstrating his broad expertise in systems engineering.

Education

• PhD in Systems Engineering and Automatic Control - Universidad Complutense de Madrid (2008)
• BSc in Physics - Universidad Complutense de Madrid (2003)
• BSc in Electronic Engineering - Universidad Complutense de Madrid (2002)

Leadership & Recognition

• Director of Faculty Development - Universidad Rey Juan Carlos (current)
• Senior Researcher - GRAFO Research Group
• EvoStar Award - Outstanding Contribution to Evolutionary Computation in Europe

Research Applications

• Obnoxious p-median Problem - Parallel variable neighborhood search approaches
• Combinatorial Optimization - Hard optimization problems across multiple domains
• Multi-Objective Optimization - Complex decision-making scenarios

Key Collaborations

• GRAFO Research Group - Active collaboration with Jose Manuel Colmenar and other group members
• International Research - Publications and presentations at international conferences
• Industry Applications - Practical optimization solutions for real-world problems

Interests

Metaheuristics | Combinatorial Optimization | Evolutionary Computation | Multi-Objective Optimization | Planning and Scheduling

Links