PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Martin Rinard

Also known as Martin C. Rinard

Martin Rinard is a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at MIT whose work on software reliability reaches into machine learning, from bug-repair systems that learn from human patches to studies of what language models learn from programs. He earned an Sc.B. from Brown in 1984, worked at two startups, and received a Stanford PhD in 1994 before teaching at UC Santa Barbara and then MIT. His group presented the CodePhage repair system in 2015, Prophet in 2016 and Genesis in 2017, and in 2024 he was senior author of a study in which a language model built its own internal model of the simulated robot world behind its training puzzles. He became an ACM Fellow in 2009 and won the 2025 ACM SIGSOFT Outstanding Research Award. Today he is a professor in MIT's Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and a member of CSAIL, and in 2026 he described the Axon compiler, whose code and proofs Claude Code wrote in Lean, during a sabbatical at the National University of Singapore.

Now at
MIT CSAIL

Timeline

  1. 1984–1994

    From Brown to a Stanford PhD

    He receives an Sc.B. in computer science from Brown University in 1984 and spends several years at two startups, Ikan Systems and Polygen Corporation. He then earns a PhD in computer science at Stanford University in 1994.

  2. 1994–2006

    Faculty posts at Santa Barbara and MIT

    He joins the Computer Science Department at the University of California, Santa Barbara as an assistant professor in 1994, then moves to MIT as an assistant professor in 1997. He is promoted to professor in 2006.

  3. 2009–2012

    ACM Fellow and PLDI paper awards

    He becomes an ACM Fellow in 2009. He wins best paper awards at PLDI in 2011 and in 2012.

  4. 2013

    Programs from ordinary language

    In 2013, he and graduate student Fan Long join Regina Barzilay and her student Tao Lei on a system that automatically learns how to handle data stored in different file formats, using specifications prepared for a popular programming competition.

  5. 2015–2017

    Learning to repair software

    In 2015, his group presents CodePhage, which repairs software bugs by importing functionality from other, more secure applications. In 2016, he and Fan Long present Prophet, a machine-learning system that repairs between 15 and 18 bugs in a test set where earlier systems repaired one or two. In 2017, the group's Genesis system creates 85 patch templates from successful patches and repairs nearly twice as many bugs as the best hand-coded template system.

  6. 2024

    Probing language models on programs

    In 2024, he is senior author, with graduate student Charles Jin, of a study that trains a language model on solutions to Karel robot puzzles. After training on over 1 million random puzzles, the model spontaneously develops its own conception of the underlying simulation.

  7. 2025

    SIGSOFT Outstanding Research Award

    He wins the 2025 ACM SIGSOFT Outstanding Research Award for fundamental contributions in pioneering the new fields of program repair and approximate computing.

  8. As of October 2026

    MIT professor and the Axon compiler

    He is a professor in MIT's Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and a member of CSAIL. In May 2026, he submits a paper on the Axon compiler, whose code and machine-checked correctness proofs Claude Code writes in Lean, and he does the work on sabbatical at the National University of Singapore.

Career

  1. NowMassachusetts Institute of TechnologyAssistant Professor
  2. NowMIT CSAILMember
  3. From 2026National University of Singapore
  4. 1994–1997University of California, Santa BarbaraAssistant Professor

Education

  1. 1994Stanford UniversityPhD in computer science
  2. 1984Brown UniversitySc.B. in computer science

From the biography.

  1. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other universityIncludes Martin Rinard. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other university. We compare doctorate and 5+ year employment links, career timing and current workplaces for 187 major-prize and 1,111 best-paper winners.
  2. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionIncludes Massachusetts Institute of Technology. We estimate where the people shaping AI studied and where their careers led. Massachusetts Institute of Technology leads with 467 former students, including 291 recorded doctorates.
  3. Google had the most people shaping AI every year from 2014 to 2025Includes Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Our estimates of which organizations employed the most people shaping AI each year from 1955 to 2025, tracing the shift from university labs to companies.
  4. The company share of AI researchers’ top papers was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974Includes Massachusetts Institute of Technology. We estimate where the people shaping AI worked when their most-cited papers appeared: the company share was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974, and Google led all organizations in 2020–2024.

Colleagues

People named in this biography, and people with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

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  1. Martin Rinard Biographical Sketch people.csail.mit.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.
  2. Martin Rinard Honors and Awards people.csail.mit.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.
  3. Writing programs using ordinary language | MIT News news.mit.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.
  4. Automatic bug repair | MIT News news.mit.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.
  5. Recognizing correct code | MIT News news.mit.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.
  6. Bug-repair system learns from example | MIT News news.mit.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.
  7. LLMs develop their own understanding of reality as their language abilities improve | MIT News news.mit.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.
  8. MIT professor Martin Rinard receives 2025 SIGSOFT Outstanding Research Award | MIT CSAIL csail.mit.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.
  9. Outstanding Research Award | ACM SIGSOFT www2.sigsoft.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  10. Testing, Credible Compilation, and Verification in the Axon Verified Compiler in Lean and Claude Code (arXiv abstract) arxiv.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  11. Testing, Credible Compilation, and Verification in the Axon Verified Compiler in Lean and Claude Code (arXiv HTML) arxiv.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  12. Martin Rinard people.csail.mit.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.