EL-GHAZALI TALBI is a full Professor in Computer Science at the University of Lille (France), and head of the optimization group of the Computer Science Laboratory (L.I.F.L.). His current research interests are in the fields of metaheuristics, parallel algorithms, multi-objective combinatorial optimization, cluster and grid computing, hybrid and cooperative optimization, and application to bioinformatics, networking, transportation, and logistics. He is the founder of the conference META (International Conference on Metaheuristics and Nature Inspired Computing), and is head of the INRIA Dolphin project dealing with robust multi-objective optimization of complex systems.