His main research areas span empirical algorithmics, artificial intelligence, bioinformatics and computer music, and he is one of the world's leading experts on stochastic local search methods and on the automated design of high-performance algorithms. He is a co-author of the book "Stochastic Local Search: Foundations and Applications", and his research has been published in numerous book chapters, journals, and at major conferences in artificial intelligence, operations research, molecular biology and computer music. Holger is a Faculty Associate of the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies and currently serves as President of the Canadian Artificial Intelligence Association (CAIAC). (For further information, see Holger's web page at http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~hoos.)