Professor Edward Keedwell

Professor Keedwell is Professor of Artificial Intelligence and Co-Director of the Centre for Resilience in Environment, Water and Waste (CREWW). He joined the Computer Science discipline in 2006 and was appointed as a lecturer in 2009. He has research interests in optimisation (e.g. genetic algorithms, swarm intelligence, hyperheuristics) machine learning and AI-based simulation and their application to problems in bioinformatics and engineering yielding over 200 journal and conference publications. He leads a research group focusing on applied artificial intelligence and has been involved with successful funding applications of over £4 million from the EPSRC, Innovate UK, EU and industry. Particular areas of current interest are the optimisation of transportation systems, the development of sequence-based hyperheuristics and human-in-the-loop optimisation methods for applications in engineering.

Recent talks

• Exeter Science Centre “Demystifying AI” Livestream (Mar 2026)
• Manchester Metropolitan University (Feb 2026)
• Keynote: ICAAI, Manchester (Nov 2025)
• Imperial College Water Workshop (July 2025)
• Explainable AI Workshop, Nuremberg (Sept 2025)
• SWAN (Smart Water Networks) Annual Conference (May, 2025)

Membership of professional bodies

• Member of the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM)
• Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
• Member of the EPSRC Peer Review College
• Member of the IEEE Task Force on Hyperheuristics

Administrative responsibilities

• Co-Director of the Centre for Resilience in Environment, Water and Waste (2026-)
• Director of Business Engagement and Innovation - Computer Science (2025-)
• Academic/Theme Lead (2020-)

Qualifications

BSc Cognitive Science, University of Exeter (1998)

PhD Computer Science, University of Exeter (2003)