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Antonio Torralba, three MIT alumni named 2025 ACM fellows

February 5, 2026
•Mit
Antonio Torralba, three MIT alumni named 2025 ACM fellows

Here's something that caught my attention — Antonio Torralba, a leading MIT researcher in AI, just made the 2025 ACM Fellows. That’s the highest honor from one of the biggest computing organizations. And get this — he shares the spotlight with three other MIT alumni, including Eytan Adar and George Candea. According to Jane Halpern from MIT’s EECS department, Torralba’s work is all about making computers see and understand the world like humans do. He’s been involved in big projects, from leading MIT’s Quest for Intelligence to working with the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab. His research on computer vision and machine learning has earned him plenty of awards, like the NSF Career Award and the PAMI Mark Everingham Prize. But here’s the thing — his contributions aren’t just technical; they’re shaping how AI perceives reality. As Halpern points out, ACM Fellows are chosen by their peers for truly groundbreaking work. And honestly, that’s a pretty big deal for the future of AI.

Antonio Torralba, Delta Electronics Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and faculty head of artificial intelligence and decision-making at MIT, has been named to the 2025 cohort of Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Fellows. He shares the honor of an ACM Fellowship with three MIT alumni: Eytan Adar ’97, MEng ’98; George Candea ’97, MEng ’98; and Gookwon Edward Suh SM ’01, PhD ’05.

A principal investigator within both the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and the Center for Brains, Minds, and Machines, Torralba received his BS in telecommunications engineering from Telecom BCN, Spain, in 1994, and a PhD in signal, image, and speech processing from the Institut National Polytechnique de Grenoble, France, in 2000. At different points in his MIT career, he has been director of both the MIT Quest for Intelligence (now the MIT Siegel Family Quest for Intelligence) and the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab. 

Torralba’s research focuses on computer vision, machine learning, and human visual perception; as he puts it, “I am interested in building systems that can perceive the world like humans do.” Alongside Phillip Isola and William Freeman, he recently co-authored “Foundations of Computer Vision,” an 800-plus page textbook exploring the foundations and core principles of the field. 

Among other awards and recognitions, he is the recipient of the 2008 National Science Foundation Career award; the 2010 J. K. Aggarwal Prize from the International Association for Pattern Recognition; the 2017 Frank Quick Faculty Research Innovation Fellowship; the Louis D. Smullin (’39) Award for Teaching Excellence; and the 2020 PAMI Mark Everingham Prize. In 2021, he was awarded the inaugural Thomas Huang Memorial Prize by the Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence Technical Committee and was named a fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence. In 2022, he received an honorary doctoral degree from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya — BarcelonaTech (UPC). 

ACM fellows, the highest honor bestowed by the professional organization, are registered members of the society selected by their peers for outstanding accomplishments in computing and information technology and/or outstanding service to ACM and the larger computing community.

Audio Transcript

Antonio Torralba, Delta Electronics Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and faculty head of artificial intelligence and decision-making at MIT, has been named to the 2025 cohort of Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Fellows. He shares the honor of an ACM Fellowship with three MIT alumni: Eytan Adar ’97, MEng ’98; George Candea ’97, MEng ’98; and Gookwon Edward Suh SM ’01, PhD ’05.

A principal investigator within both the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and the Center for Brains, Minds, and Machines, Torralba received his BS in telecommunications engineering from Telecom BCN, Spain, in 1994, and a PhD in signal, image, and speech processing from the Institut National Polytechnique de Grenoble, France, in 2000. At different points in his MIT career, he has been director of both the MIT Quest for Intelligence (now the MIT Siegel Family Quest for Intelligence) and the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab. 

Torralba’s research focuses on computer vision, machine learning, and human visual perception; as he puts it, “I am interested in building systems that can perceive the world like humans do.” Alongside Phillip Isola and William Freeman, he recently co-authored “Foundations of Computer Vision,” an 800-plus page textbook exploring the foundations and core principles of the field. 

Among other awards and recognitions, he is the recipient of the 2008 National Science Foundation Career award; the 2010 J. K. Aggarwal Prize from the International Association for Pattern Recognition; the 2017 Frank Quick Faculty Research Innovation Fellowship; the Louis D. Smullin (’39) Award for Teaching Excellence; and the 2020 PAMI Mark Everingham Prize. In 2021, he was awarded the inaugural Thomas Huang Memorial Prize by the Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence Technical Committee and was named a fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence. In 2022, he received an honorary doctoral degree from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya — BarcelonaTech (UPC). 

ACM fellows, the highest honor bestowed by the professional organization, are registered members of the society selected by their peers for outstanding accomplishments in computing and information technology and/or outstanding service to ACM and the larger computing community.

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