John R. Koza is a

computer scientist A computer scientist is a scientist who specializes in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation. Although computer scientists can also focus their work and research on ...

and a former

adjunct professor An adjunct professor is a type of academic appointment in higher education who does not work at the establishment full-time. The terms of this appointment and the job security of the tenure vary in different parts of the world, but the term is gen ...

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

, most notable for his work in pioneering the use of

genetic programming Genetic programming (GP) is an evolutionary algorithm, an artificial intelligence technique mimicking natural evolution, which operates on a population of programs. It applies the genetic operators selection (evolutionary algorithm), selection a ...

for the optimization of complex problems. Koza co-founded

Scientific Games Corporation Light & Wonder, Inc., formerly Scientific Games Corporation (SG), is an American corporation that provides gambling products and services. The company is headquartered in Las Vegas, Nevada. Light & Wonder's gaming division provides products such ...

, a company which builds computer systems to run state lotteries in the United States. John Koza is also credited with being the creator of the '

scratch card A scratchcard (also called a scratch off, scratch ticket, scratcher, scratchum, scratch-it, scratch game, scratch-and-win, instant game, instant lottery, scratchie, lot scrots, or scritchies) is a card designed for competitions, often made of t ...

' with the help of retail promotions specialist Daniel Bower. Koza was born in 1944 and earned a bachelor's degree in computer science from the

University of Michigan The University of Michigan (U-M, U of M, or Michigan) is a public university, public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest institution of higher education in the state. The University of Mi ...

, being the second person to ever earn a bachelor's degree in computer science. He earned a doctoral degree in computer science from the University of Michigan in 1972. Koza was featured in

Popular Science Popular science (also called pop-science or popsci) is an interpretation of science intended for a general audience. While science journalism focuses on recent scientific developments, popular science is more broad ranging. It may be written ...

for his work on evolutionary programming that alters its own code to find far more complex solutions. The machine, which he calls the "invention machine", has created antennae, circuits, and lenses, and has received a patent from the

US Patent Office The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is an agency in the U.S. Department of Commerce that serves as the national patent office and trademark registration authority for the United States. The USPTO's headquarters are in Alex ...

. In the political space, Koza advocates for a plan to revamp the way states choose their electors for the

Electoral College An electoral college is a body whose task is to elect a candidate to a particular office. It is mostly used in the political context for a constitutional body that appoints the head of state or government, and sometimes the upper parliament ...

in the United States, such that candidates who win the majority of the popular vote would then win a majority of the electors through an interstate compact. He established the organization National Popular Vote Inc. to advocate for state adoption of the policy and the election of supportive candidates.

References

Works by Koza

* Koza, J.R. (1990)
''Genetic Programming: A Paradigm for Genetically Breeding Populations of Computer Programs to Solve Problems''
Stanford University Computer Science Department technical report STAN-CS-90-1314. A thorough report, possibly used as a draft to his 1992 book. * Koza, J.R. (1992). ''Genetic Programming: On the Programming of Computers by Means of Natural Selection'',

MIT Press The MIT Press is the university press of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The MIT Press publishes a number of academic journals and has been a pioneer in the Open Ac ...

. * Koza, J.R. (1994). ''Genetic Programming II: Automatic Discovery of Reusable Programs'', MIT Press. * Koza, J.R.; Goldberg, David; Fogel, David; & Riolo, Rick, (Eds.) (1996). ''Genetic Programming 1996: Proceedings of the First Annual Conference (Complex Adaptive Systems)'', MIT Press. * Koza, J.R.; Deb, K.; Dorigo, M.; Fogel, D.; Garzon, M.; Iba, H.; & Riolo, R., (Eds.) (1997). ''Genetic Programming 1997: Proceedings of the Second Annual Conference'', Morgan Kaufmann. * Koza, J.R.; & Others (Eds.)(1998). ''Genetic Programming 1998'', Morgan Kaufmann Publishers. * Koza, J.R.; Bennett, F.H.; Andre, D.; & Keane, M.A. (1999). ''Genetic Programming III: Darwinian Invention and Problem Solving'', Morgan Kaufmann. * Koza, J.R.; Keane, M.A.; Streeter, M.J.; Mydlowec, W.; Yu, J.; & Lanza, G. (2003). ''Genetic Programming IV: Routine Human-Competitive Machine Intelligence'', Springer. *

External links

* *
Interview with John Koza about creating scratch cards
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Koza, John Living people American theoretical computer scientists University of Michigan alumni Polish computer scientists Stanford University School of Engineering faculty American people of Polish descent 1944 births