Kent McClymont - Research Homepage

Home

I am currently hosting the Loebner 2012 competition live webcast.
The page is available here.

The website for the 1st workshop on Understanding Problems (GECCO-UP) can be accessed here.

Academic History and Research Interests

I started at the University of Exeter in October 2008 and I am currently studying for my PhD in Computer Science which is funded by an EPSRC CASE Studentship in collaboration with Mouchel.

Before starting my PhD studies I obtained a BSc in Computer Science from the University of Exeter in 2006. Following completion of this undergraduate degree I spent 2 years working as a Support Manager for a Software Company in Warwickshire. During my PhD I have been conducting research into a number of areas, including: hyper-heuristics; Evolutionary (optimization) Algorithms (e.g., Genetic Algorithms, Evolutionary Strategies, etc.); and other optimization techniques.

I am also currently working with my colleague Maximillian Dupenois, and other postgraduate students, on the third year of a games AI programming competition for undergraduate students which we made national this year. The competition page is available on the main university pages here. The old project sites is available to CEMPS students here and a public mirror here. Following the project's successful first two years, we are hopeful it will become an annual fixture in the undergraduate timetable.

Publications

Journals

K. McClymont and E. C. Keedwell (2011): Deductive Sort and Climbing Sort: New Methods for Non-Dominated Sorting, Evolutionary Computation. Spring 2012, Vol. 20, No. 1, Pages 1-26.

Conferences

K. McClymont, D. Walker and M. Dupenois (2012): The Lay of the Land: a Brief Survey of Problem Understanding, GECCO 2012, USA.

K. McClymont, E. C. Keedwell and D. Savic (2012): Automated Construction of Fast Heuristics for the Water Distribution Network Design Problem, HIC 2012, Germany

J. Pelourdeau, K. McClymont, and D. Savic (2012): Improving AMALGAM for the Multi-objective Water Distribution Design Problem, HIC 2012, Germany

G. Goodwin, K. McClymont and D. Savic (2012): Novel Optimisation Performance Indicators for the Multi-objective Water Distribution Design Problem, HIC 2012, Germany

K. McClymont and E. C. Keedwell (2011): Markov chain Hyper-heuristic (MCHH): an Online Selective Hyper-heuristic for Multi-objective Continuous Problems, GECCO 2011, Ireland.

K. McClymont and E. C. Keedwell (2011): Benchmark Multi-objective Optimisation Test Problems with Mixed Encodings, CEC 2011, USA.

K. McClymont, E. C. Keedwell, D. Savic and M. Randall-Smith (2011): A Hyper-heuristic Approach to Water Distribution Network Design, CCWI 2011, Exeter.

K. McClymont, D. Walker, E. C. Keedwell, R. Everson, J. Fieldsend, D. Savic and M. Randall-Smith (2011): Novel Methods for Ranking District Metered Areas for Water Distribution Network Maintenance Scheduling, CCWI 2011, Exeter.

M. Randall-Smith, J. Collingbourne, J. Harvey and K. McClymont (2011): Targeting Water Distribution Network Interventions for the Cost-Effective Mitigation of Discolouration Risk: a Case Study, CCWI 2011.

K. McClymont, E. C. Keedwell, D. Savic and M. Randall-Smith (2010): Mitigating Discolouration Risk with Optimised Network Design, HIC 2010, China.

K. McClymont and E. C. Keedwell (2010): Optimising Multi-Modal Polynomial Mutation Operators for Multi-Objective Problem Classes, IEEE CEC 2010, Barcelona.

Workshops

K. McClymont and Z. Wood (2011): A Classification of Heuristics, PCCAT, Exeter.

K. McClymont and M. Dupenois (2010): Teaching and Learning Though Games, 10th Programming Workshop, Brighton.

Thesis

Underway!

Committee Positions

Web Co-chair on the SSAISB committee.

Programme chair of the GECCO Understanding Problems 2012 workshop.

Member of South West BCS committee.

Member of the PCCAT steering committee and the following organising committee positions:

Logistics Chair (2011);
Programme Co-Chair (2010).

Co-organiser of Games:Exeter (2011) and the Toroid Wars competitions (2009, 2010).

Lectures, Workshops and Surgeries

In the academic year (2010-11) I was involved in delivering workshops for:

ECM1109 Programming (workshops)

In the academic year (2009-10) I was involved in delivering workshops and lectures for:

ECM1109 Programming (workshops)
ECM1403 Distributed Computing (workshops and 2 lectures)
Tuesday General Computing Workshops
Toroid Wars Lectures and Workshops

In the academic year (2008-09) I was involved in delivering workshops for:

Personal Interests

I am a keen Dragon Boat paddler and race in the Open Crew of our local Exe-calibre club. I also take part in a number of other sports like cycling, running and tennis. I also enjoy animating, sketching and working on amateur animated films.

On Sunday 3rd May 2009 I completed my first half marathon, the Great West Run, in 2 hours and 54 seconds. I'm already looking forward to next year!

Update: I may have stated that I am looking forward to this years Great West Run, but right now I'm not sure...

I completed the 2010 Great West Run (half marathon) in 1 hour 50 minutes and 4 seconds. Congratulations to Max and David who ran fantastic times - roll on next year!?!? or not...?

In 2011 I took part in the Commando Challenge with Richard and Max where we raised money for charity and came in 5th place in the Men's division. I am currently training for 2012!

Travelling is my favourite, and most expensive, past-time. I recently spent a summer in Japan which has only fuelled my desire to travel elsewhere in the world. In the summer of 2009 I went on a trip around Europe, starting in Venice and finishing in Krakow. We travelled by boat along the Croatian coast then bus and train and bus through Bosnia and Herzegovina, Hungary, Slovakia and Poland.

In the summer of 2011 we travelled to Australia to take part in my brother's wedding and also do a bit more backpacking. There aren't enough Lonely Planet guides to keep me entertained before we fly out! We also travelled to Morocco and I will soon be going back to the USA and Germany.

I am currently collating an album of travel images - some of them are already on display at the top of each page (see above). View them all here.

Links

CEMPS College Homepage - for all information on the Computing Course and the department in general.

Animated Exeter - official website for Exeter's Animated Film Festival with full listings of events and activities.

PCCAT - Postgraduate Conference on Computing: Applications and Theory

Games:Exeter 2011 - the national undergraduate programming competition.

Toroid Wars 2010 - the undergraduate programming competition (public mirror).

Toroid Wars 2009 - last year's undergraduate programming competition (public mirror).

Contact Me

Please contact me by email, km314[at]exeter.ac.uk. Alternatively, please check out the College's website, here.