Walsh, Toby (1964 - )

Summary

Toby Walsh is among the world's leading experts on artificial intelligence. He is particularly interested in the interface between (distributed) optimisation, social choice, game theory and machine learning. Walsh is a strong advocate for restricting the use of AI for deleterious purposes. In pursuit of this he frequently appears in the media. Walsh has received numerous awards for this research. He was Scientia Professor in Artificial Intelligence at the University of New South Wales and led the Algorithmic Decision Theory Group at Data61.

Details

"Toby Walsh has made important scientific contributions in three closely related areas: artificial intelligence, constraint programming and computational social choice. These contributions have strongly influenced both the theory and practice of how optimisation problems are solved in industry. He has been a pioneer in theoretical artificial intelligence, building on ideas from fields including statistical physics, economics and game theory to study many complex and challenging optimisation problems such as scheduling and vehicle routing. His algorithms are included in the leading open source and commercial toolkits that are used to solve such problems in industry." [from https://www.science.org.au/profile/toby-walsh 30/10/2025]

Chronology

2003 -

Award - Fellow, European Association of Artificial Intelligence

2008 -

Award - Fellow, Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence

2014

Award - Humboldt Award, Alexander von Humboldt Foundation

2015

Award - Research Excellence Award, Association for Constraint Programming

August 2015 -

Career position - Leader, Algorithmic Decision Theory Group, Data61

2016 -

Career position - Guest Professor, Technical University, Berlin, Germany

2016

Award - Prize for Excellence in Engineering and Information and Communications Technologies, New South Wales Premier's Prizes in Science

2016

Award - Fellow, Australian Academy of Science (FAA)

2017 - 2022

Career position - Scientia Professor of Artificial Intelligence, University of New South Wales

2020 -

Award - Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science

2020

Award - ARC Laureate Fellowship

2024 -

Award - Fellow, Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (FTSE)

Related entries

Published resources

See also

• Robson, Alexandra K.; Production Manager and Editor eds, Who's who in Australia 2019 (Southbank, Vic.: AAP Directories, 2018), 1788 pp. Details