Karl Sims
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Karl Sims is a researcher formerly with the MIT Media Lab who is most well known for using genetic programming to evolve virtual creatures that competed in various simulated environments.
While working at Thinking Machines, Sims wrote a landmark paper (http://www.genarts.com/karl/papers/alife94.pdf) describing the virtual creatures he created. They used an artificial neural network to process input from virtual sensors and act on virtual muscles between cuboid 'limbs'. The creatures were evolved to display multiple modes of water and land based movements such as swimming like a sea snake or fish, jumping and tumbling (walking was not achieved). The creatures were also co-evolved in different species to compete for posession of a virtual cube, displaying the red queen effect. Pictures and movies of the creatures can be found at this link (http://www.biota.org/ksims/blockies/). The cover of Artificial Life: An Overview by Chris Langton notably used an image of the creatures generated by Sims.
Sims has also done various related research as described on the homepage (http://www.genarts.com/karl/) of the company he cofounded, Genarts (http://www.genarts.com/).
Other works by Karl Sims: