The Awards Committee of the Computational Intelligence Society (CIS) within the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) recently announced the recipients of the 2025 Award Nominations.

Ran CHENG, Associate Professor of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech), was honored with the IEEE Outstanding Early Career Award.

Ran CHENG has dedicated his career to pioneering research in computational intelligence, authoring over 120 academic papers that have garnered more than 13,000 citations. His contributions to the field have earned him numerous accolades, including the IEEE Outstanding PhD Dissertation Award, the IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation Outstanding Paper Award, and the IEEE Computational Intelligence Magazine Outstanding Paper Award.

He has been recognized among the Top 2% of Scientists Worldwide by Stanford University and named a Highly Cited Researcher by Clarivate. In addition to his research achievements, Professor CHENG played a crucial role in establishing the IEEE’s CIS Shenzhen Chapter and currently serves as its founding chair.

Founded in 2003, the IEEE’s CIS focuses on artificial intelligence, emphasizing the theoretical, design, and application research of computational methods inspired by biology and linguistics. The society recognizes scholars who have made significant contributions to the field of computational intelligence.

The CIS’s Outstanding Early Career Award, established in 2010, honors exceptional young scholars under the age of 40 who have demonstrated outstanding achievements in computational intelligence worldwide.