Alina Geiger (M.Sc.) has been a doctoral candidate at the chair since 2023 and conducts research on topics in machine and evolutionary learning. From 2017 to 2020, she completed her B.Sc. in Economics and, from 2020 to 2023, completed her M.Sc. in Management. During her program of study, she spent an Erasmus semester at the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano in Italy as well as at the University of Gävle in Sweden. As part of her doctorate, she was also a visiting scholar with Prof. Ira Assent at Aarhus University in Denmark.

My research focuses on the methodological advancement of approaches from machine and evolutionary learning. In particular, I work on:

  • selection methods in genetic programming,
  • combining search-based procedures with LLMs, and
  • unsupervised methods for anomaly detection.

2026

Geiger, A., Sobania, D., and Rothlauf, F. (2026). A Performance Analysis of Lexicase-Based and Traditional Selection Methods in GP for Symbolic Regression. ACM Transactions on Evolutionary Learning and Optimization, 6(1), 1-40. DOI

2025

Even-Mendoza, K., Brownlee, A., Geiger, A., et al. (2025). LLM-Guided Genetic Improvement: Envisioning Semantic Aware Automated Software Evolution. 2025 40th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering (ASE), 3902-3906. DOI
Brownlee, A. E. I., Callan, J., Even-Mendoza, K., et al. (2025). Large language model based mutations in genetic improvement. AUTOMATED SOFTWARE ENGINEERING, 32(1). DOI Author/Publisher URL
Geiger, A., Briesch, M., Sobania, D., Rothlauf, F. (2025). Was Tournament Selection All We Ever Needed? A Critical Reflection on Lexicase Selection. In Lecture Notes in Computer Science. DOI
Geiger, A., Sobania, D., Rothlauf, F. (2025). Selection Methods in Genetic Programming: A Performance Analysis. PROCEEDINGS OF THE 2025 GENETIC AND EVOLUTIONARY COMPUTATION CONFERENCE COMPANION, GECCO 2025 COMPANION, 31-32. DOI Author/Publisher URL

2024

Brownlee, A. E. I., Callan, J., Even-Mendoza, K., et al. (2024). Enhancing Genetic Improvement Mutations Using Large Language Models (Vols. 14415, pp. 153-159). DOI Author/Publisher URL
Geiger, A., Sobania, D., Rothlauf, F. (2024). A Comprehensive Comparison of Lexicase-Based Selection Methods for Symbolic Regression Problems. GENETIC PROGRAMMING, EUROGP 2024, 14631, 192-208. DOI Author/Publisher URL
Sobania, D., Geiger, A., Callan, J., et al. (2024). Evaluating Explanations for Software Patches Generated by Large Language Models (Vols. 14415, pp. 147-152). DOI Author/Publisher URL

2023

Geiger, A., Sobania, D., and Rothlauf, F. (2023). Down-Sampled Epsilon-Lexicase Selection for Real-World Symbolic Regression Problems. PROCEEDINGS OF THE 2023 GENETIC AND EVOLUTIONARY COMPUTATION CONFERENCE, GECCO 2023, 1109-1117. DOI Author/Publisher URL

I am currently responsible for the following courses:

  • Winter semester 2025/26: Programming for decision-making in Economics (more information)

In addition, I supervise bachelor’s theses, seminar papers, and master’s theses. If you are interested in a master’s thesis in my field of research, please contact me by email.