I just got a notice for one of the workshops associated with GECCO (The Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference). It turns out there are 2 dozen workshops. I hadn't realized there were so many. They are listed on this page.The announcement I got was for the first one listed: 3rd Workshop on Industrial Applications of Metaheuristics (IAM 2018). As we discussed in class, the technique of Genetic Algorithms is one of a number of meta-heuristic problem solving strategies. (They are heuristic because they don't guarantee solutions, but they often help. They are meta because they don't apply to particular problems or even problem domains; they are higher level approaches that can be applied very widely.) You might be interested in reading the description of the one listed above -- or of any of the others. As the extent of activity in this area indicates, the field is thriving.