Sanmay Das elected AAAI fellow for contributions to multi-agent systems

Sanmay Das has been elected a 2026 Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) fellow, an honor given to individuals who have made significant, sustained contributions — usually over at least a 10-year period — to the field of artificial intelligence. 

Founded in 1979, AAAI is dedicated to advancing the scientific understanding of the mechanisms underlying thought and intelligent behavior and their embodiment in machines. 

Das is the first faculty member at Virginia Tech to receive this recognition.

A professor of computer science at the Virginia Tech Institute for Advanced Computing and associate director of artificial intelligence (AI) for social impact at the Sanghani Center for Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics, Das was specifically cited “for significant contributions to the development of multi-agent interaction mechanisms and learning techniques in the public interest and for leadership service to the profession.”

One example of his work using AI to help solve societal issues stems from this question: With scarcity of resources growing in social services, can AI help bridge the need gap? 

Too often, case workers are overworked and must balance a set of competing objectives to determine who needs intensive interventions right away and who might able to succeed with less intensive ones. In his research, Das has looked at how well AI can predict the ways different types of households would respond to different interventions and how that information could be used to inform caseworkers and to optimize allocations. His work considers deeply the interactions between AI and human decision-makers and the distributional consequences of different ways of using AI in allocation. 

Das joined Virginia Tech in 2024 from his position as professor of computer science and faculty co-director of the Center for Advancing Human-Machine Partnership at George Mason University. From 2013-20, he was on the faculty of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis.

Das is recognized for his leadership roles in the AI community. He is past chair of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Special Interest Group on Artificial Intelligence; a member of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Information Science and Technology Study Group; and an emeritus member of the board of directors of the International Foundation for Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems.

His service roles include serving as program co-chair in 2017 and general co-chair in 2025 of the International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems. He also served as program co-chair in 2023 and general co-chair in 2024 of the AAAI/ACM Conference on AI, Ethics, and Society.

Das has been recognized with awards for research, teaching, and service, including the National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program award. In 2023, he was named an ACM distinguished member for contributions to AI and economics, AI for social good, and service to the profession.

He received his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a bachelor's degree from Harvard University, both in computer science.

Every year, the AAAI membership nominates individuals whom they consider to have achieved unusual distinction in the field. These nominations are then considered by the Fellows Selection Committee, comprising nine AAAI Fellows who are current members of AAAI and chaired by the immediate past president of the organization.

Das will be recognized, along with other new inductees, at the 40th Annual AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence which will be held in Singapore later this month.