Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science

Email: [email protected]
Phone: (616) 331-4372
Office: MAK D-2-206
Website: Personal Website

Education
Dual Ph.D., Computer Science and Ecology, Evolutionary Biology, & Behavior, Michigan State University, 2021

Dr. Alexander Lalejini is an assistant professor. His research lies at the intersection of computer science and evolution, with a focus on applying the principles of each field to advance the other. He develops digital systems to explore how evolution operates, engineers new evolutionary algorithms to address complex computational challenges, and fosters knowledge exchange between evolutionary biology and evolutionary computing. Dr. Lalejini is a recipient of the 2025 GVSU Distinguished Early Career Scholar Award and an NSF CISE Project Grant (Co-PI). He also serves as a co-organizer and book editor for Genetic Programming Theory and Practice (GPTP) and is a member of the International Society of Artificial Life. 

He enjoys teaching courses on algorithm engineering, evolutionary computing, programming, computer organization, and multi-agent systems. Outside of the classroom, Dr. Lalejini is an avid board gamer, foodie, and traveler.

• Vostinar, A. E., Lalejini, A., Ofria, C., Dolson, E. L., & Moreno, M. A. (2024). Empirical: A scientific software library for research, education, and public engagement. J. Open Source Softw., 9(98), 6617. https://doi.org/10.21105/JOSS.06617
• Briesch, M., Boldi, R., Sobania, D., Lalejini, A., Helmuth, T., Rothlauf, F., Ofria, C., & Spector, L. (2024). Improving Lexicase Selection with Informed Down-Sampling. Proceedings of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference Companion, GECCO 2024, Melbourne, VIC, Australia, July 14-18, 2024, 25–26. https://doi.org/10.1145/3638530.3664068
• Garbus, J., Willkens, T., Lalejini, A., & Pollack, J. (2024). Accelerating Co-Evolutionary Learning Through Phylogeny-Informed Interaction Estimation. Proceedings of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference Companion, GECCO 2024, Melbourne, VIC, Australia, July 14-18, 2024, 427–430. https://doi.org/10.1145/3638530.3654250
• Boldi, R., Bao, A., Briesch, M., Helmuth, T., Sobania, D., Spector, L., & Lalejini, A. (2024). A Comprehensive Analysis of Down-sampling for Genetic Programming-based Program Synthesis. Proceedings of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference Companion, GECCO 2024, Melbourne, VIC, Australia, July 14-18, 2024, 487–490. https://doi.org/10.1145/3638530.3654134
• Lalejini, A., Sanson, M., Garbus, J., Moreno, M. A., & Dolson, E. L. (2024). Runtime phylogenetic analysis enables extreme subsampling for test-based problems. Proceedings of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference Companion, GECCO 2024, Melbourne, VIC, Australia, July 14-18, 2024, 511–514. https://doi.org/10.1145/3638530.3654208

• Grant Gordon (undergraduate): "Investigating the role of environmental connectivity on long-term evolutionary out-comes"
• Marcos Sanson (undergraduate): "Exploiting runtime phylogenetic analysis for evolutionary algorithms"
• John Shea (undergraduate): "Investigating the role of spatial structure on the origination of adaptive processes"