ΑΙhub.org
 

Andrew Barto and Richard Sutton win 2024 Turing Award


by
06 March 2025



share this:

Andrew Barto and Richard Sutton. Image credit: Association for Computing Machinery.

The Association for Computing Machinery, has named Andrew Barto and Richard Sutton as the recipients of the 2024 ACM A.M. Turing Award. The pair have received the honour for “developing the conceptual and algorithmic foundations of reinforcement learning”. In a series of papers beginning in the 1980s, Barto and Sutton introduced the main ideas, constructed the mathematical foundations, and developed important algorithms for reinforcement learning.

The Turing Award comes with a $1 million prize, to be split between the recipients. Since its inception in 1966, the award has honoured computer scientists and engineers on a yearly basis. The prize was last given for AI research in 2018, when Yoshua Bengio, Yann LeCun and Geoffrey Hinton were recognised for their contribution to the field of deep neural networks.

Andrew Barto is Professor Emeritus, Department of Information and Computer Sciences, University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He began his career at UMass Amherst as a postdoctoral Research Associate in 1977, and has subsequently held various positions including Associate Professor, Professor, and Department Chair. Barto received a BS degree in Mathematics (with distinction) from the University of Michigan, where he also earned his MS and PhD degrees in Computer and Communication Sciences.

Richard Sutton is a Professor in Computing Science at the University of Alberta, a Research Scientist at Keen Technologies (an artificial general intelligence company based in Dallas, Texas) and Chief Scientific Advisor of the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (Amii). Sutton was a Distinguished Research Scientist at Deep Mind from 2017 to 2023. Prior to joining the University of Alberta, he served as a Principal Technical Staff Member in the Artificial Intelligence Department at the AT&T Shannon Laboratory in Florham Park, New Jersey, from 1998 to 2002. Sutton received his BA in Psychology from Stanford University and earned his MS and PhD degrees in Computer and Information Science from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

The two researchers began collaborating in 1978, at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where Barto was Sutton’s PhD and postdoctoral advisor.

Find out more



tags:


AIhub is dedicated to free high-quality information about AI.
AIhub is dedicated to free high-quality information about AI.




            AIhub is supported by:



Related posts :



Looking ahead to #ECAI2025

  23 Oct 2025
Find out what the programme has in store at the European Conference on AI.

Congratulations to the #AIES2025 best paper award winners!

  21 Oct 2025
The four winners of best paper prizes were announced during the opening ceremony at AIES.

From the telegraph to AI, our communications systems have always had hidden environmental costs

  20 Oct 2025
Drawing parallels between new technologies of the past and today.

What’s on the programme at #AIES2025?

  17 Oct 2025
The conference on AI, ethics, and society will take place in Madrid from 20-22 October.

Generative AI model maps how a new antibiotic targets gut bacteria

  16 Oct 2025
Researchers used a GenAI model to reveal how a narrow-spectrum antibiotic attacks disease-causing bacteria.

What’s coming up at #IROS2025?

  15 Oct 2025
Find out what the International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems has in store.

Applying machine learning to chip design and manufacturing: interview with Lorenzo Servadei

  14 Oct 2025
Find out how Lorenzo and his team are using ML and Electronic Design Automation.

Why we should be skeptical of the hasty global push to test 15-year-olds’ AI literacy in 2029

  13 Oct 2025
Are schools set to become testing grounds for AI developments?



 

AIhub is supported by:






 












©2025.05 - Association for the Understanding of Artificial Intelligence