PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Andries Petrus Engelbrecht

Also known as Andries Engelbrecht, Andries P. Engelbrecht

Andries Engelbrecht is a South African computer scientist whose research group works on swarm intelligence, evolutionary computation and neural networks, with particle swarm optimization at the centre. He completed a PhD on multilayer neural networks at Stellenbosch University in 1999 and spent 1998 to 2018 at the University of Pretoria, where he held the South Africa Research Chair in Artificial Intelligence from 2007 and headed the Department of Computer Science from 2008 to 2017. His Wiley books Fundamentals of Computational Swarm Intelligence (2005) and the second edition of Computational Intelligence: An Introduction (2007) came out of that period. The National Research Foundation gave him an A1 rating in 2021, and he became a Fellow of the Soft Computing Research Society of India in 2024. He is the Voigt Chair in Data Science at Stellenbosch University, with a joint professorship in its Computer Science Division.

Badges

Timeline

  1. 1988–1999

    A Stellenbosch PhD on neural networks

    He starts a BSc in computer science and mathematics at Stellenbosch University in 1988, earns honours in 1992 and a master's in 1994, and completes a PhD in computer science in 1999. His doctoral thesis is on the sensitivity analysis of multilayer neural networks.

  2. 1996–2018

    Computational intelligence at Pretoria

    He lectures in computer science at UNISA from 1996, joins the University of Pretoria's Department of Computer Science in 1998, and stays until 2018. There he builds a computational intelligence research group that develops CIlib, an open-source library of computational intelligence algorithms. By 2015, 38 master's and 13 doctoral students have graduated under his supervision.

  3. 2005–2007

    Two Wiley textbooks

    Wiley publishes his Fundamentals of Computational Swarm Intelligence in December 2005, a book on the mathematical models of social insect behaviour and how they solve optimization problems. In 2007, the second edition of his Computational Intelligence: An Introduction appears, covering swarm intelligence, fuzzy systems, neural networks, artificial immune systems and evolutionary computation.

  4. 2003–2013

    Pretoria research awards

    He receives the University of Pretoria's Young Researcher Award in 2003 and its Exceptional Academic Achiever's Award in 2007, 2010 and 2013.

  5. 2007–2018

    Research chair and department head

    From 2007 to 2018, he holds the South Africa Research Chair in Artificial Intelligence at Pretoria, and he heads its Department of Computer Science from 2008 to 2017. In 2017, he becomes director of the Institute for Big Data and Data Science, a post he holds until 2018.

  6. 2021

    An NRF A1 rating

    The National Research Foundation rates him A1 from 2021, after an A2 rating from 2015 to 2020.

  7. 2024

    Soft Computing Research Society fellowship

    In 2024, he is named a Fellow of the Soft Computing Research Society of India.

  8. As of October 2026

    Voigt Chair in Data Science

    After leaving Pretoria in 2018, he returns to his alma mater as the first holder of the new Voigt Chair in Data Science in Stellenbosch University's Department of Industrial Engineering, with a joint professorship in the Computer Science Division. His research group works mostly on swarm intelligence, especially particle swarm optimization, alongside evolutionary computation and neural networks.

Career

  1. NowStellenbosch UniversityVoigt Chair in Data Science
  2. 1998–2018University of PretoriaSouth Africa Research Chair in Artificial Intelligence, Department Head
  3. From 1996University of South AfricaLecturer in computer science

Education

  1. 1999Stellenbosch UniversityPhD
  2. 1994Stellenbosch Universitymaster's
  3. 1992Stellenbosch Universityhonours
  4. From 1988Stellenbosch UniversityBSc in computer science and mathematics

From the biography.

  1. The United States employs an estimated 48% of people shaping AIIncludes Stellenbosch University. We estimate where the people shaping AI work today, how universities, companies and research institutes split across countries, and how country shares have changed since the 1960s.
  2. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionIncludes Stellenbosch University. We estimate where the people shaping AI studied and where their careers led. Massachusetts Institute of Technology leads with 467 former students, including 291 recorded doctorates.
  3. Google had the most people shaping AI every year from 2014 to 2025Our estimates of which organizations employed the most people shaping AI each year from 1955 to 2025, tracing the shift from university labs to companies.
  4. 43% of living people shaping AI work outside their country of birthWe estimate that 43% of living people shaping AI work outside their country of birth (520 of 1,198 people with known birth and employment countries).

Colleagues

People with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

Photo: We have no published photo of Andries Petrus Engelbrecht yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. Staff – Industrial Engineering Data Science Programmes ie-datascience.sun.ac.za. Checked 21 October 2026.
  2. Andries Engelbrecht engel.pages.cs.sun.ac.za. Checked 21 October 2026.
  3. Professor Andries Engelbrecht | Mail & Guardian mg.co.za. Checked 21 October 2026.
  4. Fundamentals of Computational Swarm Intelligence | Wiley wiley.com. Checked 21 October 2026.
  5. Computational Intelligence: An Introduction, 2nd Edition | Wiley wiley.com. Checked 21 October 2026.
  6. Andries Engelbrecht | IntechOpen intechopen.com. Checked 21 October 2026.
  7. Awards - Andries Engelbrecht engel.pages.cs.sun.ac.za. Checked 21 October 2026.
  8. Research interests - Andries Engelbrecht engel.pages.cs.sun.ac.za. Checked 21 October 2026.