Hans-Paul Schwefel

Who is Hans-Paul Schwefel?

Hans-Paul Schwefel is a German computer scientist and professor emeritus at University of Dortmund, where he held the chair of systems analysis from 1985 until 2006. He is one of the pioneers in evolutionary computation and one of the authors responsible for the evolution strategies. His work has helped to understand the dynamics of evolutionary algorithms and to put evolutionary computation on formal grounds.

He attended the Technical University of Berlin and graduated as an aerospace engineer in 1965 and got his Dr.-Ing. in 1975. While as a student at TUB, he met Ingo Rechenberg in November 1963. Both of them were studying the aero- and space technology and both of them were keen on cybernetics and bionics. Rechenberg was dealing with wall shear stress measurements and Schwefel was responsible for organizing fluid dynamics exercises for other students. Together they were dreaming of a research robot working according to cybernetic principles, but computers became available only later on.

While attending the Hermann Föttinger-Institute for Hydrodynamics at TUB, he and Rechenberg began performing experiments upon wings, kinked plates, and other objects related to fluid dynamics.