Barto to Receive Distinguished Achievement Award at 2026 Undergraduate Commencement Ceremony
Barto was a co-recipient of the 2024 ACM A.M. Turing Award—considered the "Nobel Prize in Computing”—for developing the conceptual and algorithmic foundations of reinforcement learning.
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Andrew G. Barto, professor emeritus in the Manning College of Information and Computer Sciences (CICS), will receive one of three Distinguished Achievement Awards at the University of Massachusetts Amherst Undergraduate Commencement ceremony on Friday, May 15, at McGuirk Alumni Stadium.
Barto, co-recipient of the 2024 ACM A.M. Turing Award, is being honored for pioneering contributions to reinforcement learning, a branch of artificial intelligence. Often called the "Nobel Prize in Computing," the Turing Award recognized Barto and his former doctoral student Richard S. Sutton ’80MS ’84PhD, for developing the conceptual and algorithmic foundations of the field.
Barto joined Manning CICS as a postdoctoral research associate in 1977 and served as a professor from 1991 to 2012. His interest in cybernetics and neural networks began at the University of Michigan, where he earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics and a doctorate in computer science.
A Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a Fellow and Life Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), Barto has received many of the field’s highest honors. These include the 2004 IEEE Neural Network Society Pioneer Award for contributions to the field of reinforcement learning, the 2017 International Joint Conferences on Artificial Intelligence Award for Research Excellence for groundbreaking and impactful research in both the theory and application of reinforcement learning, and the 2019 UMass Neurosciences Lifetime Achievement Award.
He is currently an associate member of UMass’s Neuroscience and Behavior Program and serves as an associate editor of Neural Computation, a member of the advisory board of the Journal of Machine Learning Research, and a member of the editorial board of Adaptive Behavior. Before retiring from UMass Amherst, he co-directed the Autonomous Learning Laboratory, which helped train many notable machine learning researchers.
Barto will receive the Distinguished Achievement Award alongside Michael G. Hluchyj ’76 and Theresa M. Hluchyj ’77, alumni philanthropists whose contributions are advancing healthcare innovation, as recipients of the Distinguished Achievement Awards. Eric Swanson ’82 and Kimberly S. Budd, the 38th chief justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, will receive honorary degrees at the ceremony.
