Leandro Nunes de Castro received a BSc degree in electrical engineering from the Federal University of Goias (Brazil, 1996) and MSc and PhD degrees in computer engineering from the State University of Campinas (Unicamp) (São Paulo, Brazil) in 1998 and 2001, respectively. He received a MBA (2007) in strategic business management from the Catholic University of Santos. He was a research associate with the Computing Laboratory at UKC (Canterbury, UK) from 2001 to 2002, a visiting lecturer at Unicamp from 2002 to 2003, a senior research fellow at the Wernher von Braun Center for Advanced Research from May to December 2004, and a visiting lecturer at the Universiti Technologi Malaysia (Johor, MY) in September 2005. In May 2003, he joined the Catholic University of Santos (UniSantos) as an assistant professor in computer science and established collaborations with the Federal University of Bahia (UFBA) and the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG).
Leandro is currently an associate professor at Mackenzie University. He has broad interest in all natural computing approaches with a particular emphasis on biologically inspired computing including artificial immune systems, artificial neural networks, evolutionary algorithms, swarm intelligence, fractal geometry, and artificial life. He is the main author of Artificial Immune Systems: A New Computational Intelligence Approach published by Springer-Verlag (UK, 2002), one of the editors of Recent Developments in Biologically Inspired Computing published by Idea Group Inc. (USA, 2004), and the author of Fundamentals of Natural Computing: Basic Concepts, Algorithms, and Applications published by CRC Press LLC (June 2006). He has published over seventy-five conference papers, twenty journal papers and six book chapters mostly covering natural computing approaches. He has been a member of the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society since 1999, ICARIS (International Conference on Artificial Immune Systems) Steering Committee since 2003, the Brazilian Society for Automation (SBA) since 1998, and the Brazilian Computing Society (SBC) since 2006. In February 2007 he started a company on natural computing, named “NatComp – from Nature to Business”, which he is the Director of Research, Development, and Innovation (RDI).
F.J. Von Zuben received his B.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering in 1991. In 1993, he received his M.Sc. degree, and in 1996, his Ph.D. degree, both in Automation from the Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering, State University of Campinas, SP, Brazil. He is currently an Associate Professor at the Department of Computer Engineering and Industrial Automation, from the State University of Campinas, SP, Brazil. The main topics of his research are computational intelligence, with emphasis on artificial neural networks and evolutionary computation, autonomous navigation, multivariate data analysis, control and identification of dynamic systems. He coordinates open ended research projects in these topics, tracking real-world problems through interdisciplinary cooperation. He is also the author of more than 150 research papers and book chapters. Von Zuben is a member of the IEEE – Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, INNS – International Neural Network Society, AAAI – American Association for Artificial Intelligence, SBA – Brazilian Automation Society, and SBC – Brazilian Computer Society. He has also been a member of the Program Committee of leading conferences and has served as referee for a number of scientific journals.