Second Place in the PACE Challenge 2026

Johannes Varga, Enrico Iurlano, and Hai Xia achieved second place in the Exact Track of the PACE Challenge 2026 with their solver Woodcutter. This year’s challenge focused on the Maximum Agreement Forest problem, motivated by the comparison of phylogenetic trees. Woodcutter finished less than 1% behind the winning score, making the competition for first place particularly thrilling. Congratulations to Johannes, Enrico, and Hai on this excellent achievement!