Risto Miikkulainen

Professor Risto Miikkulainen teaches Computer Science at the University of Texas at Austin and serves as VP of AI Research at Cognizant AI Labs. With an M.S. in Engineering from Helsinki University of Technology (1986) and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from UCLA (1990), he’s a global leader in AI innovation. His research centers on neuroevolution and generative AI, tackling decision-making challenges in natural language processing, vision, and societal applications. He’s authored or co-authored over 500 articles, including the first-ever book on neuroevolution, published in 2025 from MIT Press. At Cognizant, he scales these solutions for real-world impact. Recognized as an AAAI, IEEE, and INNS Fellow, Risto’s recent accolades include: the IEEE CIS Evolutionary Computation Pioneer Award the Gabor Award from the International Neural Network Society and the Outstanding Paper of the Decade Award from the International Society for Artificial Life.