| 2025 | GECCO | Interpretable Decision Trees to Predict Solution Fitness. | Giancarlo Antonino Pasquale Ignazio Catalano, Alexander E. I. Brownlee, David E. Cairns, Russell Ainslie, John A. W. McCall |
| 2025 | GECCO | Evaluating a Novel Explainability Method for Metaheuristics via a User Study. | GianCarlo Antonino Pasquale Ignazio Catalano, Alexander E. I. Brownlee, David E. Cairns, John A. W. McCall, Russell Ainslie |
| 2024 | GECCO | Mining Potentially Explanatory Patterns via Partial Solutions. | Giancarlo Antonino Pasquale Ignazio Catalano, Alexander E. I. Brownlee, David E. Cairns, John A. W. McCall, Russell Ainslie |
| 2024 | SGAI | Explaining a Staff Rostering Problem Using Partial Solutions. | Giancarlo Antonino Pasquale Ignazio Catalano, Alexander E. I. Brownlee, David E. Cairns, John A. W. McCall, Martin Fyvie, Russell Ainslie |
| 2022 | GECCO | Towards explainable metaheuristic: mining surrogate fitness models for importance of variables. | Manjinder Singh, Alexander E. I. Brownlee, David E. Cairns |
| 2021 | SGAI | Towards Explaining Metaheuristic Solution Quality by Data Mining Surrogate Fitness Models for Importance of Variables. | Aidan Wallace, Alexander E. I. Brownlee, David E. Cairns |
| 2018 | GECCO | Multifractality and dimensional determinism in local optima networks. | Sarah L. Thomson, Sbastien Vrel, Gabriela Ochoa, Nadarajen Veerapen, David E. Cairns |
| 2017 | EUROGP | Exploring Fitness and Edit Distance of Mutated Python Programs. | Saemundur O. Haraldsson, John R. Woodward, Alexander E. I. Brownlee, David E. Cairns |
| 2013 | IJCCI | Applying a Hybrid Targeted Estimation of Distribution Algorithm to Feature Selection Problems. | Geoffrey Neumann, David E. Cairns |
| 2012 | CEC | Targeted EDA adapted for a routing problem with variable length chromosomes. | Geoffrey Neumann, David E. Cairns |
| 2012 | GECCO | Evolving Bio-PEPA process algebra models using genetic programming. | David Marco, Carron Shankland, David E. Cairns |
| 2012 | Mobisys | Poster: towards position-based routing for mobile environments. | David E. Cairns, Marwan Fayed |
| 2012 | SAC | Introducing intervention targeting into estimation of distribution algorithms. | Geoffrey Neumann, David E. Cairns |
| 2011 | CEC | Optimisation of process algebra models using evolutionary computation. | David Marco, David E. Cairns, Carron Shankland |
| 2008 | CEC | Optimisation of cancer chemotherapy schedules using directed intervention crossover approaches. | Paul Michael Godley, Julie Cowie, David E. Cairns, John A. W. McCall, C. Howie |
| 2008 | CEC | Bio-control in mushroom farming using a Markov network EDA. | Yanghui Wu, John A. W. McCall, Paul Michael Godley, Alexander E. I. Brownlee, David E. Cairns, Julie Cowie |
| 2008 | CIBCB | Fitness directed intervention crossover approaches applied to bio-scheduling problems. | Paul Michael Godley, David E. Cairns, Julie Cowie, John A. W. McCall |
| 2008 | GECCO | Optimisation and fitness modelling of bio-control in mushroom farming using a Markov network eda. | Alexander E. I. Brownlee, Yanghui Wu, John A. W. McCall, Paul Michael Godley, David E. Cairns, Julie Cowie |
| 2008 | GECCO | The effects of mutation and directed intervention crossover when applied to scheduling chemotherapy. | Paul Michael Godley, David E. Cairns, Julie Cowie, Kevin Swingler, John A. W. McCall |
| 2007 | CEC | Directed intervention crossover applied to bio-control scheduling. | Paul Michael Godley, David E. Cairns, Julie Cowie |
| 2005 | GECCO | Evolving an improved axial structure for fibrillar collagen. | David E. Cairns, G. J. Cameron, T. J. Wess |