Since the inception of constraints in AI for modeling and solving combinatorial problems in the 1960's, constraint programming (CP) has emerged both as a scientific field as well as an array of successful techniques and tools for solving difficult real-life problems. Its applications are ubiquitous and include configuration, design, computational biology, diagnosis, logistics, planning, routing, and scheduling. The progress of CP is due to its multidisciplinary nature which includes fields such as AI, programming languages and systems, logics, operations research, and algorithmics. In this talk, I attempt to give you an overview of the Constraint Programmer's toolbox for solving combinatorial optimization problems. I will take you on several gentle excursions that shed light on the what, why, and how of CP. I will focus in particular on capturing structure in combinatorial problems by constraints that ease modeling and aid solving and CP as an amazingly flexible and powerful toolbox of constraints as reusable software components.

Short Bio:
Christian Schulte is a professor of computer science at the unit Software and Computer Systems, School of Information and Communication Technology, KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden. Christian also works as expert researcher at the Computer Systems Laboratory of the Swedish Institute of Computer Science (SICS). Before joining KTH in 2002, he got a diploma in computer science from the University of Karlsruhe, Germany (1992), worked as a researcher and project leader at the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) (1992-1997) and as a researcher at Saarland University, Germany (1997-2002), from which he also obtained a doctoral degree in engineering (2001). At KTH, he earned a docent degree in computer systems in 2009. His research interests include constraint programming, programming systems, and distributed systems. His current research focus is on constraint-based compilation and on models, architectures, and implementation techniques for constraint programming systems. He is heading the development of Gecode, one of the most widely used Constraint Programming systems. More information is available at Schulte.