It is my pleasure to welcome you to Madrid for the 2015 Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference--GECCO 2015. This is a special year for several reasons. Firstly, sixteen years ago, in 1999, GECCO was born and held for the first time in Orlando, Florida, USA. So happy birthday sweet sixteen, GECCO! We are now in our teenage years, and still growing stronger. Second, thirty years ago the first ICGA, the International Conference on Genetic Algorithms, was held in 1985. Several people who attended that event are still with us today to bear witness to the strength of the (r)evolutionary ideas that were presented there. And last but not least, this year witnesses the highest ever proportion of women in the Organizing Committee, following the spirit of Women@GECCO. This year's GECCO is comprised of 18 regular tracks, plus, for the second year, the Hot Off the Press (HOP) track, which offers authors of outstanding research recently published in journals and other conferences the opportunity to present their work to the GECCO community. Under the guidance of Editorin- Chief Sara Silva, the Track Chairs and Program Committee have selected 182 out of the 505 submissions received in all tracks (excluding HOP) for oral presentation as full papers, resulting in an acceptance rate of 36%. Close to 100 short papers will be presented in the regular poster |