Reid W. Barton

Reid William Barton (born May 6, 1983) is an American mathematician and competitive-programming prodigy. He was the first person to win four gold medals at the International Mathematical Olympiad (1998-2001), capping it with a perfect 42/42 score in 2001, and is the only person to have won gold at both the IMO and the International Olympiad in Informatics. He won the AMS-MAA Morgan Prize (2004) and was a four-time Putnam Fellow (2001-2004). After undergraduate study at MIT and a stint at Akamai, he completed a Harvard PhD in mathematics (2019) under Michael J. Hopkins, then held a postdoc at Pittsburgh/CMU, and works on formalizing mathematics with the Lean proof assistant, where he is a mathlib maintainer. He serves on the IMO Grand Challenge committee.

Notes4

• First person ever to win four IMO gold medals (1998-2001), capped by a perfect 42/42 in 2001 - a record that made him the benchmark for the 'what happens to prodigies' question.
• Only person to win gold at both the IMO and the International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI, gold 2000 and 2001; 580/600 and first place in 2001) - the rare double that shows range across proof and code.
• As of November 2021 sits on the committee for the IMO Grand Challenge (a prize for an AI that can win IMO gold) - a full-circle move from the medal stand to shaping the AI-vs-olympiad contest.
• Completed a Harvard PhD in mathematics (2019) under Michael J. Hopkins; earlier MIT work advised by Charles E. Leiserson - bridges theory and systems.
• Postdoctoral researcher at University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon; works on formalizing mathematics with the Lean proof assistant.
• Took part-time university classes from age 10-11 (Tufts chemistry in 5th grade, physics in 6th grade, then Swedish/Finnish/French/Chinese), and scored a 5 on AP Calculus at age 10; homeschooled from third grade.
• At Akamai worked with Ramesh Sitaraman to build one of the earliest video performance measurement systems, which became an industry standard - a rare commercial-technology contribution for a competition mathematician.
• Worked part-time from eighth grade with MIT computer scientist Charles E. Leiserson on CilkChess, a top computer-chess program - an early entry into high-level research.