Julian Togelius

Julian Togelius is an Associate Professor at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Tandon School of Engineering, New York University. He co-directs the NYU Game Innovation Lab and serves as Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Transactions on Games. His research focuses on AI techniques for game design and games as testbeds for AI development, including procedural content generation, evolutionary algorithms, and player modeling. He has organized major competitions like the General Video Game AI Competition and the Mario AI Championship.

Research Interests: Julian explores AI-driven game design, procedural content generation (PCG), evolutionary computation, and the intersection of games with broader AI challenges. His work spans automatic level design, opponent AI, and using games to benchmark general intelligence. He emphasizes data-driven models of player experience and integrating machine learning into game development.

Organizational Activities: He has held roles including General Chair of IEEE Computational Intelligence and Games (2017), co-organizer of the General Video Game Playing Competition, and editor roles in key journals. His work also extends to music generation (MetaCompose) and data-driven game design (e.g., 'Data Adventures' from open datasets).

Professional Contributions: Julian has advised numerous PhD students focusing on AI and games, published over 160 peer-reviewed works, and authored/co-authored books like Artificial Intelligence and Games (2018) and Procedural Content Generation in Games (2016). His research bridges academic rigor with practical game development, emphasizing computational creativity and interactive systems.