The University of Malta wishes to extend its heartfelt congratulations to Professor Georgios N. Yannakakis from the Institute of Digital Games, who has been newly elevated to an IEEE Fellow for his contributions to affective computing and artificial intelligence applied to games.
This is the first-ever elevation to IEEE Fellow for a University of Malta staff member, and a first for Malta.
Prof. Yannakakis will be formally recognised as IEEE Fellow as of 1 January 2024.
The IEEE fellowship is a distinction awarded to select IEEE members whose professional contributions are deemed fitting in any IEEE field of interest. This selection is done following a rigorous evaluation procedure by the Board of Directors and Executive Staff, and each year, the IEEE elevates no more than 0.1% of its members to the distinguished level of fellow.
is the global leading professional association, with over 400,000 members hailing from 160 countries around the world, that is largely considered to be a leading authority for advancing technology for humanity, in areas such as aerospace systems, computers and telecommunications, biomedical engineering, electric power and consumer electronics, among many others.
“While considered a personal achievement, this elevation to IEEE Fellow is a testament of what brilliant teams can accomplish together. I am particularly proud of my colleagues, postdoctoral fellows, doctoral students and research associates of our AI research group at the Institute of Digital Games. I am also thankful UM has provided all the necessary means to support our research on AI and games, affective computing and generative AI for over a decade now”, said Prof. Yannakakis.
Prof. Ing. Simon G. Fabri, the University’s Pro-Rector for Research and Knowledge Transfer, commented that Prof. Yannakakis' latest achievement, which is a proud moment for the University, is also testament to his leadership, which led to the pioneering contributions of the Institute of Digital Games throughout the last 10 years; and that played a pivotal role in cultivating Malta’s digital game industry.
Upon personally congratulating Prof. Yannakakis, University of Malta Rector, Prof. Alfred J. Vella, said “this milestone is evidence of the talent we have at UM – talent that is exceptional at both the national and the international level and is effectively contributing to the high quality of research for UM academics. I am proud to be witnessing such a moment and wish Prof. Yannakakis many more prolific years of work.”
The full list of newly-elevated fellows, on which Prof. Yannakakis is represented, can be found .
Prof. Yannakakis’ Biography
Georgios N. Yannakakis is a Professor at the Institute of Digital Games, University of Malta (UM) and a co-founder and research director of (Malta). He is a leading expert of the game artificial intelligence research field with core contributions in machine learning, evolutionary computation, affective computing and player modelling, computational creativity and procedural content generation. He has published over 300 journal and conference papers in the aforementioned fields and his work has been cited broadly (). His research has been supported by numerous national and European grants (including a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship) and has appeared in Science Magazine and New Scientist among other venues. He has been involved in a number of journal editorial boards and he is currently the Editor in Chief of the and an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation. He is the co-author of the Artificial Intelligence and Games textbook and the co-organiser of the summer school series.
