Jacob Schrum's Page for Spring 2012

I'm in the middle of my sixth year of graduate studies at the University of Texas at Austin. I'm a Ph.D. student in the Department of Computer Science, and I've already received a Master of Science in Computer Sciences (MSCS) degree from the department as a stepping stone on the way to my Ph.D. I made my dissertation proposal on Evolving Multimodal Behavior in the Fall of 2009, and am currently in candidacy. I received my B.S. from Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas, where I triple-majored in Computer Science, Math and German.

My dissertation advisor is Risto Miikkulainen of the Neural Networks Research Group. I'm interested in automatic discovery of complex multi-modal behavior, particularly in the domain of video games. Agents that can behave in different manners in response to different situations are crucial for games because they are so complex, and human players adapt so quickly. I'm particularly interested in the use of multiobjective evolution and neuroevolution in these domains. Furthermore, because I believe in the power of evolution via natural selection, I think it should be possible to find domain-independent methods to solve these tasks. Therefore I also study and develop domain-independent shaping methods to help evolution. The less expert knowledge, the better. This work primarily makes use of the simulation environment BREVE.

My source code is available here. This code is offered freely without guarantee. If I ever find the time I might put up some more information about how to use the code, but in the meantime you can feel free to ask me for help. If you are unfamiliar with BREVE, then I recommend you try out some of the BREVE example code first. The control class for the simulation is Simulation.tz. Though the file extension is tz, all files are text files. To get a list of all command line parameters, type:
breve -ux Simulation.tz io off help

I've also done some work in the domain of Unreal Tournament 2004 using the programming API Pogamut, which communicates with the game according to the Gamebots message protocol. Along with Igor Karpov, I entered a bot in the 2010 Botprize Competition, where we came in second place with our UT^2 bot.

This semester I'll be aiding Adam Klivans as he teaches CS313K - Logic, Sets, and Functions. I am also continuing in my role as webmaster for both UTCS's AI Lab Website and the Neural Networks Research Group Website.

Journal Articles

Jacob Schrum and Risto Miikkulainen (2012). Evolving Multimodal Networks for Multitask Games, IEEE Transactions on Computational Intelligence and AI in Games (TCIAIG 2012). Editor: Simon M. Lucas. IEEE. (To Appear) (movies)

Conference Publications

Jacob Schrum, Igor V. Karpov and Risto Miikkulainen (2011). UT^2: Human-like Behavior via Neuroevolution of Combat Behavior and Replay of Human Traces, Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Computational Intelligence and Games (CIG 2011). (slides)

Jacob Schrum and Risto Miikkulainen (2011). Evolving Multimodal Networks for Multitask Games, Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Computational Intelligence and Games (CIG 2011). (slides, movies) Best Paper Award (also extended into a journal article)

Jacob Schrum and Risto Miikkulainen (2010). Evolving Agent Behavior In Multiobjective Domains Using Fitness-Based Shaping, Proceedings of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO 2010). (slides, movies)

Jacob Schrum and Risto Miikkulainen (2009). Evolving Multi-modal Behavior in NPCs, Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Computational Intelligence and Games (CIG 2009). (slides, movies) Best Student Paper Award

Jacob Schrum and Risto Miikkulainen (2008). Constructing Complex NPC Behavior via Multi-Objective Neuroevolution, Proceedings of the Fourth Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment Conference (AIIDE 2008). (slides, movies)

Book Chapters

Jacob Schrum, Igor V. Karpov and Risto Miikkulainen (2012). Humanlike Combat Behavior via Multiobjective Neuroevolution, Believable Bots. Editor: Philip F. Hingston. Springer. (To Appear)

Igor V. Karpov, Jacob Schrum and Risto Miikkulainen (2012). Believable Bot Navigation via Playback of Human Traces, Believable Bots. Editor: Philip F. Hingston. Springer. (To Appear)

Technical Reports

Jacob Schrum (2008). Competition Between Reinforcement Learning Methods in a Predator-Prey Grid World, The University of Texas at Austin, Department of Computer Sciences. Report# AI08-9 (ai tech report).

Teaching:

Current classes:

Assistant Instructor for CS313K - Logic, Sets, and Functions (Spring 2012) taught by Adam Klivans
Discussion Sections:

Unique Time Location

52820 F 10:00-11:00 ENS 116

52825 F 11:00-12:00 ETC 2.132

52835 F 1:00-2:00 CPE 2.212

Office Hours: W 12:00 - 1:00 or 1:00-2:00 (depending on the week) in CSA Cubicle 2. Details on Google Calendar.

Unique	Time	Location
52820	F 10:00-11:00	ENS 116
52825	F 11:00-12:00	ETC 2.132
52835	F 1:00-2:00	CPE 2.212

Previously taught classes:

CS301K - Foundations of Logical Thought (Fall 2011)
CS105 - Computer Programming in PHP & SQL (Spring 2009, Fall 2009)
CS105 - Computer Programming in LISP (Fall 2008)

Previous TA work:

CS307 - Foundations of Computer Science (Summer 2008) taught by Mike Scott
CS337 - Theory In Programming Practice (Spring 2007, Spring 2008) taught by Jayadev Misra
CS305J - Introduction to Computing (Fall 2006, Fall 2007) taught by Mike Scott

Miscellaneous:

Fall 2011: BEACON Researchers at Work Blog Post about my research.
Summer 2011: Evolving Multimodal Networks for Multitask Games as presented at the 2011 BEACON Congress (Also at CIG 2011)
Summer 2011: UT^2: Human-like Behavior via Neuroevolution of Combat Behavior and Replay of Human Traces abstract for the CEC 2011 Human-like Bot Workshop (slides)
Spring 2011: Botprize 2010 Competition: Revised/Improved Slides About Our 2nd Place UT^2 Bot presented to Student ACM Chapter at Southwestern University
Spring 2011: Computer Systems Class Guest Lecture: Clock Synchronization presented at Southwestern University
Spring 2011: Math/CS Departmental Colloquim Presentation: Evolution, Brains and Multiple Objectives presented at Southwestern University
Fall 2010: Botprize 2010 Competition: Slides About Our 2nd Place UT^2 Bot (PDF) presented at DeVry University in Austin, TX
Fall 2009: Ph.D. Proposal: Evolving Multimodal Behavior (slides)
Spring 2009: Database Systems Term Project: Comparison of Triplestore Architectures in the Oracle RDBMS
Spring 2009: Dependable Computing Systems Term Project: Synchronous Atomic Broadcast Simulator
Spring 2009: Research Preparation Examination Slides: Evolution of Teamwork in Multiagent Systems
Spring 2008: Applied Statistics Term Project: Progress of the Evolutionary Algorithm NSGA-II
Summer 2007: Update of Java ESP from version 1.0 to 1.1
Spring 2007: Recursion and Induction Term Project: A Neural Network Model in ACL2
Fall 2006: Neural Networks Term Project: Neuro-Evolution in Multi-Player Pente
Undergraduate: Computer Science Honors Thesis: Genetic Algorithms and Neural Networks: The Building Blocks of Artificial Life
Undergraduate: Math Capstone: Modeling Population Dynamics with Volterra-Lotka Equations
Undergraduate: German Honors Thesis: Verstehen durch Interpretieren: Die Wichtigkeit des Lesers für ein Verständnis von Friedrich Nietzsches Also sprach Zarathustra

Last Updated: 5/7/12