Berufung zum Gutachter in die Auswahlkommission “Deutsche nach Asien, Pazifik, Nahost und Nordafrika” durch den Vorstand des Deutschen Akademischen Austauschdienstes DAAD (Berufung 2017, erneute Berufung 2021, seit 2017)
Mitglied im Erweiterten Senat der Universität Leipzig (seit Oktober 2015)
Vorsitzender des Promotionsausschuss Informatik der Fakultät für Mathematik und Informatik der Universität Leipzig (Juli 2013 – September 2019, seit November 2022)
Mitglied im Advisory Board des profilbildenden Bereichs COLIBRI – Complexity of Life in Basic Research and Innovation – der Universität Graz (seit 2021)
Vorherige Aktivitäten:
Dekan der Fakultät für Mathematik und Informatik sowie geschäftsführender Direktor des Institut für Informatik (Oktober 2019 – Oktober 2022)
Mitglied im Direktorium des Leipzig Research Center Global Dynamics (ReCentGlobe) (April 2020 bis Oktober 2022)
Mitglied im Vorstand des Interdisziplinären Zentrums für Bioinformatik (IZBI) der Universität Leipzig (Oktober 2021 bis Mai 2022)
Ansprechpartner des Forschungsprofilbereichs Mathematische und Computergestützte Wissenschaften der Universität Leipzig (2014-2019)
Mitglied im Fakultätsrat, Fakultät für Mathematik und Informatik der Universität Leipzig (October 2010 – September 2022)
Mitglied Biotechnologisch-Biomedizinisches Zentrum der Universität Leipzig (2005-2016)
Mitglied im Profilbildenden Forschungsbereich der Universität Leipzig: “Mathematik und ihre Anwendungen in den Naturwissenschaften” (von Beginn bis zur Ablösung der Profilbildenden Forschungsbereiche durch die Forschungsprofilbereiche)
Mitglied DFG Graduiertenkolleg Wissensrepräsentation der Universität Leipzig (2003-2008)
Studiendekan für Informatik, Universität Leipzig (2004-2005)
Editorial Work
2011-2016:
Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation, ISSN: 1089-778X

2008-2017:
Associate Editor of the International Journal of Intelligent Computing and Cybernetics (IJICC), Emerald, ISSN: 1756-378X

seit 2006:
Member of the Editorial Board of Swarm Intelligence, Springer, ISSN: 1935-3812

seit 2010:
Associate Editor of the International Journal of Applied Evolutionary Computation (IJAEC), IGI publisher, ISSN: 1942-3594

seit 2010:
Associate Editor of the International Journal of Applied Metaheuristic Computation (IJACM), IGI publisher, ISSN: 1947-8283

seit 2012:
Member of the Editorial Board of the Book Series Emergence, Complexity and Computation, Springer, ISSN: 2194-7287

Tutorials, Key Note Speech, Eingeladener Sprecher
Invited speaker at 2016 Computational Intelligence Forum (CIF’2016), Shenzhen, China, Oct 27-28 2016
Invited speaker at the 2016 International Workshop on Nature Inspired Computation and Applications (IWNICA’16), Hefei, China, 24-26 October 2016
Invited speaker at the 2012 International Workshop on Nature Inspired Computation and Applications (IWNICA’12), Hefei, China, 22-26 October 2012
Invited speaker at the Ringvorlesung WS 2012, Referat Ökologie und Nachhaltigkeit des Studierendenrat der TU Chemnitz, Chemnitz, 2012.
Invited lecturer at 2012 International Spring School in Natural Computing (SSNC 2012), Tarragona, Spain, May 28 – June 1st, 2012.
Invited speaker for the Ringvorlesung des Studium Generale und der AG Umwelt Freiberg, TU Bergakademie Freiberg, 22 November 2011.
Invited speaker at the Workshop “Nucleotides – Networks – Novelties. Understanding Evolution Beyond Darwin and Haeckel”, Jena Centre for Bioinformatics, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, March 28-29 2011
Invited speaker at the Workshop “Swarm Intelligence and Critical Behavior”, Centrer for Interdisciplinary Research (ZiF), University of Bielefeld, March 22-24, 2011.
Invited speaker at the Workshop on Insect Self-Organization and Swarming, Mathematical Biosciences Institute (MBI), Columbus, Ohio, March 14-18, 2011.
Invited speaker at “Social Biomimicry: Insect Societies and Human Design” at Arizona State University, Tempe, USA, February 18-20, 2010.
Report about the meeting: C. Tate Holbrook et al.: Social insects inspire human design. Biology Letters, 2010.
Invited speaker at NSF Workshop on Distributed Processing over Cognitive Networks at University of California Los Angeles, November 19-20, 2009.
Invited keynote speaker at the “Third International School of Design of Collective Intelligence(DECOI-2009)” at the Lorentz Center in Leiden (The Netherlands), February 23-27 2009.
Invited Tutorial on “Ant Colony Optimization”, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), Skudai Johor, Malaysia, November 26-27, 2007.
Invited Tutorial on “Ant Colony Optimization”, Faculty of Information Science and Technology, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UTM), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, November 22-23, 2007.
Invited speaker at the ECCS 2007 Satellite Conference on Molecular Docking, Complexity, and Optimization, Dresden, October 4-5. 2007.
Invited tutorial “Ant Colony Optimization” at the IEEE Symposium Series on Computational Intelligence 2007, Honolulu, Hawaii, April 1, 2007.
Invited Talk at the Annual Meeting of the German Region of the GSE (Guide Share Europe) “Organic Computing und Methoden der Schwarmintelligenz – Schlaglichter auf aktuelle Forschungsarbeiten” Berlin, May 24, 2006.
Invited tutorial “Ant Colony Optimization and Particle Swarm Optimization” at the Brazil School of Agents, Porto Alegre, September 29, 2005.
Invited Key Note Speach for the conference “Design, Analysis, and Simulation of Distributed Systems 2005 (DASD 2005)”, San Diego, California, April 5, 2005.
Invited Talk: Simulation studies of self-organized task selection
5th Regensburg Symposium on Evolutionary Biology, Regensburg, May 2, 2005.
Key Note Speech: Ant Colony Optimization: Biological Motivation, Phase Structure and Modelling.
I International Symposium on Mathematical and Computational Biology (BIOMAT 2004), Ilheus, Brazilia, November, 2004.
Invited Talk: The Use of Models for Social Insects Organization for Solving Optimization Problems in Computer Science.
XXII International Congress on Entomology, Track on Advances In Modelling Social Insect Organization & Reproduction, Brisbane, Autralia, August, 2004.
Key Note Speech: Traces of Insects in Computer Science.
Integrated Studies on the Economy of Insect Societies, European INSECTS Network Meeting, Laufen, Germany, March 31, 2003
Tutorial (invited): Ant Colony Optimzation.
Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO-2001), Tutorials, 2001, San Francisco, CA
Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO-2002), Tutorials, 2002, New York
scheduled for Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO-2003), Tutorials, 2003, Chicago
Tutorial (invited): Multiobjective Optimization with Ant Colony Systems.
Workshop on Multiple Objective MetaHeuristics (MOMH) (a joint PM2O – EU/ME meeting), November 4-5, 2002, Paris
Tutorial (with D. Merkle): Ant Colony Optimization.
The Seventh International Conference on Parallel Problem Solving from Nature (PPSN2002), September 7 – 11, 2002 Granada, Spain
Interviews und Presse

ScienceNews Scientists Discover Hundreds of New RNA Viruses in Insects, (9. Januar 2020) zum Artikel S. Käfer, S. Paraskevopoulou, F. Zirkel, N. Wieseke, A. Donath, M.. Petersen, T. C. Jones, M. Middendorf, S. Junglen, B. Misof, C. Drosten “Re-assessing the diversity of negative strand RNA viruses in insects”
PLOS Pathogens, 15(12): e1008224, 2019.
Also covered in ntv Spillover auf Menschen Wildtierhandel fördert Virenübertragung. April 2020, focus online Forscher identifizieren große Anzahl potenzieller Krankheitserreger anhand ihrer Gensignaturen, 9.1.2020
ScienceDaily Hundreds of novel viruses discovered in insects, 8. Januar 2020
Reach out and feed someone: Automated system finds rapid honey bee communication networks, Phys.org – News and Articles on Science and Technology
Also in: R&D, Science Newsline, EeurkaAlert!, and MoneyScience
Interview in: Schwarmintelligenz – Keine Angst vor Maschinenmenschen, radio mephisto 97,6, Beitrag vom 23.2.2015 von Tobias Schmutzler
Interview in: Stammbaumforschung – Ein Blick in die Vergangenheit, radio mephisto 97,6, Beitrag vom 19.2.2015 von Merten Waage
Interview in: Suchhilfe von der Crowd, Deutschlandfunk,Computer und Kommunikation, Beitrag vom 12.04.2014 von Jennifer Stange
Ants build cheapest networks , Itnews – For Australian Business, 18. Februar 2011, Article by Liz Tay
Systeme werden intelligent wie die Ameisen, Computer Zeitung – Future IT , 13. Januar 2009, Artikel von Markus Schmid
Organische Anwendungen brauchen die Intelligenz eines Ameisenstaats Computer Zeitung, 48/2008, 7. November 2008, Artikel von Markus Schmid
Interview im Rahmen der Eröffnungsfeier zur 62. IAA Nutzfahrzeuge in Hannover, 25. September 2008, Interviewerin: Sandra Maischberger
Berichte dazu in: Nutzfahrzeugmesse Hannover – FTWild inszeniert Eröffnungsfeier in originellem Talk-Format , openPR – das offene PR-Portal, News-ID: 245794, 2008 und
“Don’t stop me now”, IAA AKTUELL, Nr. 2 (26.9.2008), p. 1, 2008 und
m+a report – Ausgabe 7/2008.
Kampf dem Verkehrsinfarkt . Technology Review, 2. August 2007, Artikel von Denis Dilba .
Das grosse Krabbeln . Handelsblatt, Wissenschaft, p. 9, 14. September 2006, Article by Marcus Anhäuser.
Interview in: Organic Computing . Österreichischer Rundfunk Ö1. Matrix, Sonntag, 14. Mai 2006, 22:30 Uhr
Interview with Martin Middendorf . KI Zeitschrift, Heft 4/05: 42-43, 2005.
International-Graduate-Kurse und PhD-Kurse
Master course on “Reconfigurable Architectures and Parallel Computing Models”, Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, Barcelona (Spain), funded by a grant (with Maria Serna and Maria Blesa) from the Ministry of Education, Spain, May 19 – 23, 2008.
Master course on “Swarm Intelligence and Organic Computing”, Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, Barcelona (Spain), funded by a grant (with Maria Serna and Maria Blesa) from the Ministry of Education, Spain, September 2007.
PhD course on “Swarm Intelligence and Organic Computing” held within the PhD program in Software, Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya (Spain), funded by grant (with Maria Serna) from the Ministry of Education, Spain, October 2006.
Course on “Swarm Intelligence” (“Tópicos Especiais em Computação: SWARM INTELLIGENCE / Inteligência Coletiva”) together with Ana L. C. Bazzan. The course is within the Programa de Pós Graduação em Computação (PPGC), Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Brasilien, funded by grants from the National Council for Research and Development (CNPq) and FAPERGS (Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio Grande do Sul), September 2005.
PhD course on “Reconfigurable Computing and Swarm Intelligence” held within the Quality Doctoral Program “Ingeniería del Software e Inteligencia Artificial”, University of Málaga (Spain), funded by grant (with Enrique Alba) from the Ministry of Education, Spain, June 2005.
Workshop Organisation
(ICSI-DMBD’2019) Tenth International Conference on Swarm Intelligence (ICSI’2019) in conjunction with The Fourth International Conference on Data Mining and Big Data (DMBD’2019), July 26-20, 2019, Chiang Mai, Thailand (Technical Committee Co-chair).
(ICSI-DMBD’2018) Ninth International Conference on Swarm Intelligence (ICSI’2018) in conjunction with The Third International Conference on Data Mining and Big Data (DMBD’2018), June 17-22, 2018, Shanghai, China (Technical Committee Co-chair).
(SEAL2017) 11th International Conference on Simulated Evolution and Learning, 11-13 November, 2017, Shenzhen, China (Technical Co-chair).
(GECCO-2017) Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference, July, 2015, Berlin (Track co-chair on Swarm Intelligence).
(GECCO-2016) Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference, July 20-24, 2016, Denver, USA (Track co-chair on Swarm Intelligence).
(ICSI-CCI 2015) Sixth International Conference on Swarm Intelligence and the Second BRICS Congress on Computational Intelligence, 2015, June 26 – 29, Peking, China (Technical Committee Co-chair)
(ICSI 2014) Fifth International Conference on Swarm Intelligence, 2014, October 17 – 20, Hefei, China (Technical Committee Co-chair)
(EvoCOP 2013) 13th European Conference on Evolutionary Computation in Combinatorial Optimisation, 2013, April 3-5, Vienna, Austria (Programme Chair)
(ICSI 2013) Fourth International Conference on Swarm Intelligence, 2013, Juni 12 – 15, Harbin, China (Technical Committee Co-chair)
(ICSI 2012) Plenary Session Co-chair of the Third International Conference on Swarm Intelligence, 2012, June 17 – 20, Shenzhen, China
(EvoCOP 2012) 12th European Conference on Evolutionary Computation in Combinatorial Optimisation, 2012, April 11-13, Malaga, Spain (Programme Chair)
(ICSI2010) International Conference on Swarm Intelligence, 2010, June 6-9, Shanghai (Special Session Chair)
Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference, 2009, Montreal, Canada (Track chair on “Bioinformatics and Computational Biology”)
(ECCS2007) European Conference on Complex Systems, 2007, Dresden, (Chair of Special Track on Bioinspired Modelling)
(SIS2007) IEEE Swarm Intelligence Symposium, 2007, Honolulu, Hawaii (Special Session Chair)
(EvoSTIM2003) 5th European Workshop on Scheduling and Timetabling, 2003, Essex, UK (Co-Chair)
(EvoSTIM2002) 4th European Workshop on Scheduling and Timetabling, 2002, Kinsale, Ireland (Co-Chair)
(EvoPlan) Evolutionary Algorithms for AI Planning, Bird-of-a-feather Workshop at GECCO-2000, Las Vegas, Nevada, July 2000 (Workshop Chair)
(ANTS’2000 ) Second International Workshop on Ant Colony Optimization, 2000, Brüssel, Belgien (Co-Organizer)
24. Workshop Komplexitätstheorie, Datenstrukturen und Effiziente Algorithmen, Karlsruhe, 15. November 1994 (Co-Organizer)
Guest Editor
PLOS Computational Biology
Special Issue on Swarm Intelligence of
IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation, 13(4), 2009
Guest Editors: A. Engelbrecht, X. Li, L.M. Gambardella, M. Middendorf
Special Issue “European Conference on Complex Systems 2007”
Theory in Biosciences, 127(2), 2008
Guest Editors: D. Helbing, J. Jost, A. Lorincz, M. Middendorf
Special Issue on Evolutionary Computation in Combinatorial Optimization of
Journal of Mathematical Modelling and Algorithms , 4(4), 2004
Guest Editors: Jens Gottlieb, Emma Hart, Martin Middendorf, Günther Raidl, Colin Reeves
Special Issue on Ant Algorithms and Swarm Intelligence of
IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation (2002)
Guest Editors: M. Dorigo, L.M. Gambardella, M. Middendorf, T. Stützle
Mitgliedschaft in Programmkomitees
sieht Liste
Advisory Committee Mitglied
Scientific Advisory Committee for the Emphasis Year 2010-2011 on “Evolution, Synchronization, and Environmental Interactions: Insights from Plants and Insects” of the Mathematical Biosciences Institute (MBI).
Projektgutachter für
Agencia Nacional de Investigacion y Desarrollo (ANID), Chile
Alexander von Humboldt Foundation
City University of Hong Kong, China
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)
Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD)
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), UK
Exzellenzforschungsprogramm des Landes Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
Fonds zur Förderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung (FWF), Österreich
Human Frontier Science Organisation (HFSP)
Israel Science Foundation (ISF)
National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Control (INRIA), Frankreich
National Research Foundation (NRF), South Africa
National Science Foundation (NSF), USA
Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), Netherlands
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes
EU Planing of Research Funding
Invited participant of the Thematic workshops Cognition and control (9 March 2006) towards a Cognitive Systems research agenda in FP7
Gutachter für
Abstract and Applied Analysis
Advances in Complex Systems
Aerospace Science and Technology
AIAA Journal
Algorithmica
Applied Computational Intelligence and Soft Computing.
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Life
Asia Pacific Management Review
Australasian Journal of Combinatorics
Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology
Biology Letters
BioSystems
BMC Bioinformatics
Briefings in Bioinformatics
Bulletin of Mathematical Biology
Computational Optimization and Applications
Computers and Operations Research
Computer Vision and Image Understanding
Current Zoology
Discrete Applied Mathematics
Ecological Modelling
eLife
EURASIP Journal on Applied Signal Processing
EURASIP Journal on Embedded Systems
European Journal of Operational Research
Evolutionary Computation
Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution – Behavioural and Evolutionary Ecology
Fundmenta Informaticae
Future Generation Systems Journal
Genome Biology and Evolution
IEEE/ACM Transactions on Computational Biology and Bioinformatics
IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering
IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems I
IEEE Transactions on Computers
IEEE Transactions on Cybernetics
IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management
IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computing
IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems
IEEE Transactions on Robotics
IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics – Part B
IEEE Transactions on Very Large Scale Integration Systems
IEE Proceedings Part E – Computers and Digital Techniques
Information and Computation
INFORMS Journal on Computing
International Journal of Aerospace Engineering
International Journal of Computational Intelligence and Applications
International Journal of Computational Intelligence Research
International Journal of Engineering Simulation
Iranian Journal of Science and Technology
Journal of Artificial Evolution and Applications
Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation
Journal of Bioinformatics and Computational Biology
Journal of Computational Biology
Journal of Computer and System Science
Journal of Discrete Algorithms
Journal of Heuristics
Journal of Mathematical Modelling and Algorithms
Journal of Parallel and Distributed Computing
Journal of Mechanical Design
Journal of Scheduling
Journal of Theoretical Biology
Journal of the Royal Society Interface
Knowledge and Information Systems
Kuwait Journal of Science
Mathematical Biosciences
Mathematical Problems in Engineering
Mathematics Abstracts
Mathematics and Computers in Simulation
Microprocessors and Microsystems
Modern Physics Letters B
Natural Computing
Naval Research Logistics
Neural Computing and Applications
Operations Research
Optimization
Optimization and Engineering
Parallel Computing
Parallel Processing Letters
PLoS One
PLOS Pathogens
Proceedings of the Royal Society A
scholarpedia
Scientia Iranica
Soft Computing
The Computer Journal
Theoretical Computer Science
VLSI Design
Chapman & Hall/ CRC
MIT Press
Wiley Verlag
sowie für zahlreiche Konferenzen und Workshops.
Juror für
Multimedia Transfer 2002
Multimedia Transfer 2001
Multimedia Transfer 2000
Multimedia Transfer ’99
Multimedia Transfer ’98
European Academic Software Award 1998
Andere Aufgaben
Vorsitz des Arbeitskreises Neue Medien in der Lehre der Katholischen Universität Eichstätt-Ingolstadt (2001-2002)