Ronald J. Williams
Ronald J. Williams | |
|---|---|
| Born | Ronald James Williams 1945 Los Angeles, California, USA |
| Died | February 16, 2024 (aged 78–79) |
| Other names | Ron J. Williams |
| Known for | Backpropagation Teacher forcing Policy gradient method |
| Academic background | |
| Education | California Institute of Technology UCSD |
| Doctoral advisor | Donald Werner Anderson |
| Other advisor | David Rumelhart |
| Academic work | |
| Institutions | UCSD Northeastern University |
Ronald James Williams (1945 – February 16, 2024) was an American mathematician and computer scientist who spent the majority of his career at Northeastern University. He is considered one of the pioneers of neural networks. In 1986, he co-authored the seminal paper in Nature on the backpropagation algorithm along with David Rumelhart and Geoffrey Hinton, which triggered a boom in neural network research.