Grant Dick 1992 – 1996

The King’s High School 1996 Dux, Associate Professor Grant Dick is Head of the Department of Information Science at the University of Otago. He has a background in Information Systems Development and a PhD in Evolutionary Computation

His PhD Thesis was in a field known as Evolutionary Computation, developing software that mimics natural selection in order to find multiple solutions to complex problems. It is an idea with applications for finance, engineering, medicine and a broad range of other fields in which complicated decisions play a major role. Examples of Grant’s work have appeared in internationally-respected journals.

Grant's overall research goal is to discover intelligent methods to solve difficult real-world problems. Broadly speaking, he is interested in computational intelligence methods and their application to scheduling, optimisation, data mining and multi-objective problem solving. There are many ways to solve a complex mathematical problem. You can do it the old-fashioned way, using pen and paper. Better still, you can programme a computer to solve the problem for you. Or even better still, as Grant has discovered, you can programme a computer to programme itself to solve the problem for you.

Grant is the recipient of a University of Otago Teaching Award.

As well as being the King’s Dux, Grant, in his five years at King’s, collected numerous academic awards including Certificate of Credit –  Australian Mathematics Competition 1995; Certificate of Distinction –  Australian Science Competition 1995; Certificate of Commendation – Analytical Chemistry Competition 1996; Certificate of Merit – Chemistry 13 Examination 1995 and 1996.

During this time, he also gained Honourable Mention in the 3rd Form, General Excellence in Forms 4, 5 and 6, Form 5 Science Prize, Form 6 Chemistry and Computing Prizes and the prestigious Bremner Trophy for Top Student in Form 6.

But not all his efforts were put toward academic excellence. For eight and a half years Grant has trained in Kyokushin, a physically and mentally demanding sport in which he achieved to a high level. In 1996 he gained his Black Belt after a gruelling six-hour grading.