See also Black-Box Optimization Lab @ University of Tsukuba for activities of our Lab and publications.
Affiliation
Professor at Institute of Systems and Information Engineering / Center for Artificial Intelligence Research, University of Tsukuba
Visiting Researcher at RIKEN Center for Advanced Intelligence Project
Visiting Researcher at Osaka University
Address
1-1-1 Tennodai, Tsukuba 305-8573, JAPAN
akimoto [at] cs [dot] tsukuba [dot] ac [dot] jp
My main research field is black-box optimization, especially in continuous domain. I am interested in stochastic search algorithms such as covariance matrix adaptation evolution strategies (CMA-ES), a probabilistic model-based derivative-free optimizer. I work on theoretical analysis of stochastic search algorithms and also on design principle for efficient algorithms in practice, and on real-world applications.
Youhei Akimoto received the B.S. degree in computer science in 2007, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in computational intelligence and systems science from the Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan, in 2008 and 2011, respectively. From 2010 to 2011, he was a Research Fellow at JSPS, Japan, and from 2011 to 2013, he was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at INRIA, France. From 2013 to 2018, he was an Assistant Professor at Shinshu University, Japan, and from 2018 to 2025, he was an Associate Professor at University of Tsukuba, Japan. Since 2025, he has been a Professor at University of Tsukuba, Japan. His research interests include the design principles, theoretical analyses, and applications of stochastic search heuristics and reinforcement learning. He won the Best Paper Award at GECCO 2018 and FOGA 2019. He is an associate editor of ACM Transactions on Evolutionary Learning and Optimization and a member of the editorial board of Evolutionary Computation. He has given many tutorials on evolution strategies, particularly CMA-ES, in GECCO.
Mar 2004: Graduated from Waseda High School
Apr 2004: Entered the 5th Department of Tokyo Institute of Technology
Mar 2007: Early graduation from the Department of Information Engineering, School of Engineering, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Bachelor of Engineering
Apr 2007: Entered the Master's Program in the Department of Computational Intelligence and Systems Science, Interdisciplinary Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Tokyo Institute of Technology
Mar 2008: Early completion of the Master's Program in the Department of Computational Intelligence and Systems Science, Interdisciplinary Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Master of Engineering
Apr 2008: Entered the Doctoral Program in the Department of Computational Intelligence and Systems Science, Interdisciplinary Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Tokyo Institute of Technology
Mar 2011: Completed the Doctoral Program in the Department of Computational Intelligence and Systems Science, Interdisciplinary Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Doctor of Engineering
Apr 2010 – Mar 2011: JSPS Research Fellow (DC2)
Apr 2011 – Mar 2013: Post-Doctoral Researcher, TAO Team, INRIA-Saclay – Île-de-France
Apr 2013 – Mar 2014: Assistant Professor, Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Shinshu University
Apr 2014 – Mar 2018: Assistant Professor, Faculty of Engineering, Shinshu University
Apr 2018 – Aug 2025: Associate Professor, Institute of Systems and Information Engineering, University of Tsukuba
Feb 2019 – Present: Visiting Researcher, RIKEN Center for Advanced Intelligence Project
Sep 2025 – Present: Professor, Institute of Systems and Information Engineering, University of Tsukuba
Journals
Evolutionary Computation (MIT Press) Editorial Borad (2019--now)
ACM Transactions on Evolutionary Learning and Optimization (ACM) Associate Editors (2019--now)
Reviewer for other journals (IEEE TEVC, JMLR, TMLR, etc.)
Conferences
Chair for ENUM Track of GECCO (2024, 2025)
Student Workshop Organizer at GECCO (2018, 2019)
Chair for CO Track of GECCO (2015, 2016)
PC and SPC for conferences (GECCO, NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, PPSN, FOGA, IJCAI, AAAI, AISTATS, etc.)
Google Scalar：https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=m7OXdsUAAAAJ&hl=en
Researchmap：https://researchmap.jp/7000010953