PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Kenneth V. Price

Also known as Kenneth Price, Ken Price

Kenneth V. Price is a self-taught researcher in evolutionary computation who co-invented differential evolution, a simple and efficient heuristic for global optimization over continuous spaces. After a physics degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1974, he published a "genetic annealing" algorithm in 1994 that fused simulated annealing with genetic methods. When Rainer Storn challenged him with the Tchebyshev polynomial fitting problem, his discovery of differential mutation proved the key to solving it, and the two introduced differential evolution in 1995, followed by a 1997 Journal of Global Optimization paper and a 2005 Springer book with Jouni Lampinen. In 2017, he and Storn shared the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society's Evolutionary Computation Pioneer Award, and his 2022 paper with Abhishek Kumar and Ponnuthurai Suganthan described trial-based dominance, a way to compare both the speed and accuracy of stochastic optimizers.

Works
21
Citations
45,611
h-index
14
Badges

Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 22 October 2026.

Timeline

  1. 1974

    Physics at Rensselaer

    He earns a B.Sc. in physics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1974. He also works briefly as a supervisor at the Teledyne-Gurley Scientific Instrument Company in Troy, New York, before moving to San Francisco.

  2. 1994

    Genetic annealing in Dr. Dobb's

    Self-taught in evolutionary computation and engaged in research on artificial intelligence and system modeling, he publishes "Genetic Annealing" in Dr. Dobb's Journal in 1994. The method fuses simulated annealing and genetic methods into a hybrid random-search technique.

  3. 1995

    Inventing differential evolution

    Rainer Storn challenges him to solve the Tchebyshev polynomial fitting problem, and his discovery of differential mutation proves the key to solving it. In 1995, during Storn's stay at the International Computer Science Institute in Berkeley, the two invent differential evolution and first publish it as ICSI Technical Report TR-95-012.

  4. 1997

    The 1997 differential evolution papers

    In April 1997, he and Storn present differential evolution in Dr. Dobb's Journal as a simple evolution strategy whose main search engine takes fewer than 20 lines of C code. Their 1997 Journal of Global Optimization paper describes it as a simple and efficient heuristic for global optimization over continuous spaces.

  5. 2005

    The Differential Evolution book

    With Storn and Jouni Lampinen, he coauthors Differential Evolution: A Practical Approach to Global Optimization, which Springer publishes in 2005.

  6. June 2017

    Black box differential evolution

    At the IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation in June 2017, he presents black box differential evolution (BBDE), a simple variant of classic DE/rand/1/bin. Its performance is invariant under translation, orthogonal rotation, reflection and permutation of the parameters.

  7. 2017

    An Evolutionary Computation Pioneer Award

    He and Rainer Storn receive the 2017 Evolutionary Computation Pioneer Award from the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society.

  8. December 2022

    Trial-based dominance and U-scores

    In December 2022, he, Abhishek Kumar and Ponnuthurai N. Suganthan describe trial-based dominance, which lets non-parametric tests compare both the speed and accuracy of stochastic optimizers. They test the resulting U-scores by using them to determine the winners of the CEC 2022 Special Session and Competition on Real-Parameter Numerical Optimization.

Career

  1. From 1974Teledyne-Gurley Scientific Instrument CompanySupervisor

Education

  1. 1974Rensselaer Polytechnic InstituteB.Sc. in physics

From the biography.

Most-cited works

  1. Differential Evolution – A Simple and Efficient Heuristic for global Optimization over Continuous Spaces1997 · Journal of Global Optimization · 29,469 citationsWith Rainer Storn
  2. Differential Evolution: A Practical Approach to Global Optimization2014 · 5,724 citationsWith Rainer Storn
  3. Differential Evolution - A simple and efficient adaptive scheme for global optimization over continuous spaces2004 · 3,335 citations
  4. New Ideas In Optimization1999 · 2,136 citationsWith Dipankar Dasgupta and Marco Dorigo
  5. Differential Evolution: A Practical Approach to Global Optimization (Natural Computing Series)2005 · 1,392 citationsWith Rainer Storn

From OpenAlex, as of 21 October 2026.

  1. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other universityIncludes Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other university. We compare doctorate and 5+ year employment links, career timing and current workplaces for 187 major-prize and 1,111 best-paper winners.
  2. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionIncludes Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. 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. The company share of AI researchers’ top papers was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974Includes Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. We estimate where the people shaping AI worked when their most-cited papers appeared: the company share was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974, and Google led all organizations in 2020–2024.
  4. Google has the highest combined h-index among AI organizationsIncludes Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. We estimate that Google holds the highest combined h-index at 8,016, while universities account for 73% of the deduplicated total across AI organizations.

Colleagues

People named in this biography, and people with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

Photo: We have no published photo of Kenneth V. Price yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. Kenneth Price | IEEETV ieeetv.ieee.org. Checked 20 October 2026.
  2. OCT94: ALGORITHM ALLEY (Genetic Annealing, Dr. Dobb's Journal) jacobfilipp.com. Checked 20 October 2026.
  3. Rainer Storn | IEEETV ieeetv.ieee.org. Checked 20 October 2026.
  4. Dr. Dobb's Journal April 1997: Differential Evolution jacobfilipp.com. Checked 20 October 2026.
  5. Differential evolution - Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org. Checked 20 October 2026.
  6. How Symmetry Constrain Evolutionary Optimizers: Black Box Differntial Evolution: A Case Study | IEEE CIS Resource Center resourcecenter.cis.ieee.org. Checked 20 October 2026.
  7. Past Recipients - IEEE Computational Intelligence Society cis.ieee.org. Checked 20 October 2026.
  8. [2212.09423] Trial-Based Dominance Enables Non-Parametric Tests to Compare both the Speed and Accuracy of Stochastic Optimizers arxiv.org. Checked 20 October 2026.