David E. Goldberg


David Edward Goldberg is an American computer scientist, civil engineer, and former professor. Until 2010, he was a professor in the department of Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and was noted for his work in the field of genetic algorithms. He was the director of the Illinois Genetic Algorithms Laboratory and the co-founder & chief scientist of Nextumi, which later changed its name to ShareThis. He is the author of Genetic Algorithms in Search, Optimization and Machine Learning, one of the most cited books in computer science.

Early life and education

David E. Goldberg received a Ph.D. in civil engineering in 1983 from the University of Michigan. His advisors were E. Benjamin Wylie and John Henry Holland. His students including Kalyanmoy Deb, Jeff Horn, and Hillol Kargupta.

Career

Goldberg began his academic career at the University of Alabama, where he was assistant professor and then associate professor in the Department of Engineering Mechanics. At Alabama, he supervised the doctoral work of Kalyanmoy Deb, who would become a leading figure in evolutionary multi-objective optimization.
In 1990, Goldberg joined the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he became professor in the department of Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering and director of the Illinois Genetic Algorithms Laboratory. In 2003 he was appointed as the first holder of the Jerry S. Dobrovolny Professorship in Entrepreneurial Engineering.
He is also a co-founder of ShareThis and, in 2007, co-founded the Illinois Foundry for Innovation in Engineering Education at the University of Illinois. Through his work, Goldberg has been involved globally as a movement leader, leadership coach, and change management consultant, collaborating with individuals, organizations, and networks to promote systemic change in education.
Furthermore, he is the president of Big Beacon, a nonprofit organization focused on the transformation of engineering education.

Publications

  • 1983. Computer-aided gas pipeline operation using genetic algorithms and rule learning, Ph.D. thesis. University of Michigan. Ann Arbor, MI.
  • 1989. Genetic Algorithms in Search, Optimization and Machine Learning. Addison-Wesley.
  • 1991. Real-coded genetic algorithms, virtual alphabets, and blocking. Complex Systems 5, pp. 139–167.
  • 1995. Life Skills and Leadership for Engineers. McGraw Hill
  • 2002. The Design of Innovation: Lessons from and for Competent Genetic Algorithms. Kluwer Academic Publishers.
  • 2006. The Entrepreneurial Engineer. Wiley.
  • 2014. A Whole New Engineer, with Mark Somerville. ThreeJoy.