Andrew Barto
Andrew Barto is a professor emeritus at UMass Amherst and a pioneer of reinforcement learning. After mathematics and computer science studies at Michigan, he joined UMass in 1977. With Richard Sutton and other colleagues, he studied how agents can improve their behavior through rewards and experience. Their early papers connected adaptive learning elements with control problems. Barto and Sutton later wrote Reinforcement Learning: An Introduction, published in 1998 and expanded in 2018. Barto also helped lead the Autonomous Learning Laboratory and served as department chair before retiring in 2012. He and Sutton received the 2024 ACM Turing Award, announced in 2025. His research connects computing, animal learning and neuroscience.
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Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 14 October 2026. Citations and h-index are hidden because this OpenAlex record may be incomplete or mix in other authors.
Timeline
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1977
Joining UMass Amherst
Joined UMass Amherst as a postdoctoral research associate.
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1983
Making learning and control concrete
Coauthored a learning control paper with Richard Sutton and Charles Anderson.
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1998
Writing a shared introduction
Published Reinforcement Learning: An Introduction with Sutton.
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2007–2012
Research leadership and retirement
Served as department chair, co-directed the Autonomous Learning Laboratory and retired in 2012.
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2024 award, announced 2025
Recognizing a long partnership
Shared the 2024 Turing Award with Sutton, announced in March 2025; he is a UMass professor emeritus.
Sources and credits
Photo: Andrew Barto; image supplied by www.cics.umass.edu. License: Not stated by source. Source: cics.umass.edu. Cropped to a square and resized. Ask us to remove or replace this photo.