My bachelor degree was in computer engineering. After I graduated, I worked for about five years as a programmer and software engineer. At the same time I completed a MSc in computer science. My master’s thesis was about evolving plant-like structures using Lindenmayer systems and genetic algorithms. With that project, I fell in love with research and nature inspired approaches to computation. Thereafter I took a lecturer position at my University and a year later (1997) I headed off for my PhD at the University of Sussex, UK where I studied the notion of ‘error thresholds’ in molecular evolution and how this notion relates to the more familiar idea of an optimal mutation rate in genetic algorithms. My deepest interest lies in understanding the phenomenon of biological life and how we can use computers to do so. I’m also interested in real-world applications of biologically inspired computational techniques, especially for problems in bioinformatics.