Andrew G. Barto (born 1948) is an American computer scientist, currently Professor Emeritus of

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to practical disciplines (includi ...

University of Massachusetts Amherst The University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst, UMass) is a public research university in Amherst, Massachusetts and the sole public land-grant university in Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Founded in 1863 as an agricultural college, ...

. Barto is best known for his foundational contributions to the field of modern computational

reinforcement learning Reinforcement learning (RL) is an area of machine learning concerned with how intelligent agents ought to take actions in an environment in order to maximize the notion of cumulative reward. Reinforcement learning is one of three basic machine ...

Early life and education

Barto received his B.S. with distinction in mathematics from the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

in 1970, after having initially majored in naval architecture and engineering. After reading work by Michael Arbib and

McCulloch McCulloch is a Scottish surname. It's a variation of the Northern Irish surname McCullough. It's commonly found in Galloway. Notable people with the surname include: *Alan McCulloch (politician), New Zealand politician *Alan McLeod McCulloch ( ...

and Pitts he became interested in using computers and mathematics to model the brain, and five years later was awarded a Ph.D. in

for a thesis on

cellular automata A cellular automaton (pl. cellular automata, abbrev. CA) is a discrete model of computation studied in automata theory. Cellular automata are also called cellular spaces, tessellation automata, homogeneous structures, cellular structures, tessel ...

Career

In 1977, Barto joined the College of Information and Computer Sciences at the

as a postdoctoral research associate, was promoted to associate professor in 1982, and full professor in 1991. He was department chair from 2007 to 2011 and a core faculty member of the Neuroscience and Behavior program. During this time at UMass, Barto co-directed the Autonomous Learning Laboratory (initially the Adaptive Network Laboratory), which generated several key ideas in reinforcement learning. Richard Sutton, with whom he co-authored the influential book ''Reinforcement Learning: An Introduction'' (MIT Press 1988; 2nd edition 2018), was his first PhD student. Barto graduated 27 PhD students, thirteen of which went on to become professors. Barto published over one hundred papers or chapters in journals, books, and conference and workshop proceedings. He is co-author with Richard Sutton of the book ''Reinforcement Learning: An Introduction'', MIT Press 1998 (2nd edition 2018), and co-editor with Jennie Si, Warren Powell, and Don Wunch II of the ''Handbook of Learning and Approximate Dynamic Programming'', Wiley-IEEE Press, 2004.

Awards and honors

Barto is a

Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellowship of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (FAAAS) is an honor accorded by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) to distinguished persons who are members of the Association. Fellows are elected ...

, a Fellow and Senior Member of the

IEEE The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operat ...

, and a member of the

American Association for Artificial Intelligence The Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) is an international scientific society devoted to promote research in, and responsible use of, artificial intelligence. AAAI also aims to increase public understanding of artif ...

and the

Society for Neuroscience The Society for Neuroscience (SfN) is a professional society, headquartered in Washington, DC, for basic scientists and physicians around the world whose research is focused on the study of the brain and nervous system. It is especially well kn ...

. Barto was awarded the UMass Neurosciences Lifetime Achievement Award, 2019, the IEEE Neural Network Society Pioneer Award in 2004, and the

IJCAI Award for Research Excellence The IJCAI Award for Research Excellence is a biannual award before given at the IJCAI conference to researcher in artificial intelligence as a recognition of excellence of their career. Beginning in 2016, the conference is held annually and so is ...

, 2017. His citation for the latter read:

''Professor Barto is recognized for his groundbreaking and impactful research in both the theory and application of reinforcement learning.''

References

External links

* * Year of birth missing (living people) 1940s births Living people University of Michigan alumni University of Massachusetts Amherst faculty Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellow Members of the IEEE Artificial intelligence researchers Place of birth missing (living people) {{US-compu-bio-stub