Ryan Hayward received his B.Sc. and M.Sc. in mathematics from Queen's University (Kingston) in 1981 and 1982 and his Ph.D.in computer science from McGill University in 1987. His doctoral thesis, Two Classes of Perfect Graphs, was supervised by Vasek Chvatal. From 1986 through 1989 he was assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science at Rutgers University, after which he held an Alexander von Humboldt fellowship at the Institute for Discrete Mathematics in Bonn for 1989-90. From 1990 through 1992 he was assistant professor in the Department of Computing Science at Queen's University. From 1992 he was assistant and then associate professor in the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science at the University of Lethbridge. In 1999 he joined the Department of Computing Science at the University of Alberta, where he was promoted to professor in 2004. He has supervised 13 graduate and 29 undergraduate students, some of whom later became university professors. His research interests include algorithms for two-player games. For example, together with Martin Mueller, his doctoral student Chao Gao is investigating AlphaZero-style learning techniques for the game of Hex. His research group (including at times Yngvi Bjornsson, Michael Johanson, Broderick Arneson, Philip Henderson, Jakub Pawlewicz, and Aja Huang --- later lead programmer of AlphaGo) has built the world's strongest computer Hex player, and has solved two 10x10 Hex opening moves and all smaller-board opening moves. With Bjarne Toft, he wrote Hex, the full story, published by Taylor-Francis in 2019. Recently he developed Games, Puzzles, Algorithms, a university course that introduces algorithms for solving puzzles or playing games. He lives in Edmonton where he commutes year-round by recumbent bike.

I am a computing science professor at UAlberta in Edmonton, where it sometimes snows.

I was raised in Vancouver, Winnipeg and Lethbridge, started university at UBC, spent a year in Grenoble and finished a BSc (honours math '81) and an MSc (math '82) at Queen's (Kingston) supervised by Peter Taylor and Selim Akl. I finished a PhD in computer science from McGill in 1987 supervised by Vašek Chvátal. Together with Vašek and fellow students Bruce Reed and Chính Hoàng, I visited Claude Berge --- who taught me how to play Hex --- in Paris for four months at the start of 1984.

I have had many inspiring teachers, including Bill Oleksy, Mr. Hori, Mr. Kosaka, Norm Forshaw, Walter Gage, Jim Verner, Dan Norman, Jon Davis, David Gregory, Peter, Selim and Vašek.

I worked in a recycling paper plant in Vancouver for a few summers before NSERC undergraduate scholarships started my university employment. I was an assistant prof at Rutgers (86-88/9), an Alexander von Humboldt fellow at the Institute for Discrete Math in Bonn (89/90), an assistant prof at Queen's (90-91/2), and an assistant and then associate prof at Lethbridge (92-99). I joined UAlberta in 1999 and was promoted to professor in 2004.

Since 2008 I've taught an undergraduate course on cryptography based on "The Code Book" by Simon Singh.

Since 2016 I've taught an undergraduate course on games, puzzles and algorithms inspired by the success of AlphaGo.

I've supervised 13 graduate and more than 30 undergraduate students. Some became professors, others worked at companies that include Google and DeepMind.

My phd and early work was on graph algorithms. Lately I'm interested in algorithms for two-player games such as Hex and Go. Some of my students and post-docs (including Yngvi Bjornsson, Michael Johanson, Broderick Arneson, Philip Henderson, Jakub Pawlewicz, Chao Gao, and Aja Huang --- later lead programmer of AlphaGo) built the world's strongest computer-Hex player, and solved two 1-move 10x10 Hex openings and all smaller-board openings.

I like to get around by bike. In May 1978 I rode solo from Vancouver to Lethbridge. These days I commute year-round on one of my recumbent bikes.