Reid William Barton (born May 6, 1983) is a mathematician and also one of the most successful performers in the International Science Olympiads..

Biography

Barton is the son of two environmental engineers. Officially homeschooled since third grade, Barton took part-time classes at Tufts University in

chemistry Chemistry is the science, scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a natural science that covers the Chemical element, elements that make up matter to the chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules and ions ...

(5th grade), physics (6th grade), and subsequently

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

, Finnish,

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

, and

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...

. Since eighth grade he worked part-time with MIT

computer scientist A computer scientist is a person who is trained in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation, as opposed to the hardware side on which computer engineers mainly focus (al ...

Charles E. Leiserson on CilkChess, a

computer chess Computer chess includes both hardware (dedicated computers) and software capable of playing chess. Computer chess provides opportunities for players to practice even in the absence of human opponents, and also provides opportunities for analysi ...

program. Subsequently, he worked at Akamai Technologies with computer scientist Ramesh Sitaraman to build one of the earliest video performance measurement systems that have since become a standard in industry.Ramesh Sitaraman and Reid W. Barton. After Akamai, Barton went to grad school at

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

to pursue a Ph.D. in mathematics, which he completed in 2019. Afterwards, he did research as a post-doctoral fellow at Pittsburgh. As of November 2021 he sits on the committee for the

Mathematical and programming competitions

Barton was the first student to win four gold medals at the

International Mathematical Olympiad The International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) is a mathematical olympiad for pre-university students, and is the oldest of the International Science Olympiads. The first IMO was held in Romania in 1959. It has since been held annually, except i ...

, culminating in full marks at the 2001 Olympiad held in Washington, D.C., shared with

Gabriel Carroll Gabriel Drew Carroll (born December 24, 1982) is an Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Toronto. He was born to tech industry worker parents in Oakland. He graduated from Harvard University with B.A. in mathematics and linguist ...

, Xiao Liang and Zhang Zhiqiang. Barton is one of seven people to have placed among the five top ranked competitors (who are themselves not ranked against each other) in the

William Lowell Putnam Competition The William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition, often abbreviated to Putnam Competition, is an annual mathematics competition for undergraduate college students enrolled at institutions of higher learning in the United States and Canada (regar ...

four times (2001–2004).William Lowell Putnam Competition
Mathematical Association of America list of Putnam winners Barton was a member of the MIT team which finished second in 2001 and first in 2003 and 2004. Barton has won two gold medals at the International Olympiad in Informatics. In 2001 he finished first with 580 points out of 600, 55 ahead of his nearest competitor, the largest margin in IOI history at the time. Barton was a member of the 2nd and 5th place MIT team at the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest, and reached the finals in the Topcoder Open (2004), semi-finals (2003, 2006), the ''TopCoder Collegiate Challenge'' (2004), semi-finals (2006), TCCC Regional finals (2002), and TopCoder Invitational semi-finalist (2002).

Other accomplishments

Barton has won the Morgan Prize awarded jointly by the American Mathematical Society and the

Mathematical Association of America The Mathematical Association of America (MAA) is a professional society that focuses on mathematics accessible at the undergraduate level. Members include university, college, and high school teachers; graduate and undergraduate students; pure a ...

for his work on packing densities. Barton has taught at various academic Olympiad training programs for high school students, such as the Mathematical Olympiad Summer Program.Index of /rwbarton/Public/mop
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Selected publications

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References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Barton, Reid W. 1983 births Living people Putnam Fellows Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni 21st-century American mathematicians People from Arlington, Massachusetts International Mathematical Olympiad participants Competitive programmers