Manuela Veloso, AI and Robotics Pioneer, Receives CMU's 2026 Founders Medal

A career spanning academia and finance

Veloso earned her Ph.D. in computer science at Carnegie Mellon, and CMU lists her as an SCS alumna of 1989 and 1992. According to the university, she is the Herbert A. Simon University Professor Emerita at CMU, where she was also a faculty member in the Computer Science Department and head of the Machine Learning Department.

From 2018 to 2026 she was the founder and head of JPMorganChase AI Research. CMU says she built a team of more than 100 members there. The team worked on pillar areas of AI in finance: data-driven optimization, planning and search, multi-modal document analysis, trustworthy AI, AI and mathematical reasoning, continual learning and multiagent systems. According to CMU, the team published its research in academic venues while also contributing to business needs and vision.

Her own research interests, as listed by the university, include multiagent systems, autonomous robots, continual learning agents and AI in finance.

Education, leadership roles and honors

Veloso holds a licenciatura degree in electrical engineering and a Master of Science degree in electrical and computer engineering from Instituto Superior Técnico in Lisbon, a Master of Arts degree in computer science from Boston University, and her Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon. She has also received honorary doctorates from Örebro University in Sweden, the Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, the Université de Bordeaux in France and the Universidade Católica of Portugal.

She served as president of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), and she is a co-founder and past president of the RoboCup Federation. CMU notes that she is a fellow of AAAI, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Association for Computing Machinery.

• ACM/SIGART Autonomous Agents Research Award
• Einstein Chair of the Chinese Academy of Sciences
• NSF Career Award
• Allen Newell Medal for Excellence in Research

She is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, with a citation "for contributions to artificial intelligence and its applications in robotics and the financial services industry." She is also a member of the Academy of Sciences of Portugal.

Veloso on the award

In a statement published by CMU, Veloso said she was "honored and humbled" to be chosen for the medal. She described herself as "an extremely proud alumna of Carnegie Mellon, where I learned everything about AI from founders and giants in the field."

She said she taught AI to undergraduate and graduate students for three decades, and that with her Ph.D. students she learned "to pursue fantastic AI research and engineering goals, always thinking big and aiming high." Reflecting on her recent years in the finance industry, she called herself "a true product of the Carnegie Mellon spirit and amazing vision."

What the award signals

The Founders Medal recognizes a career that links university research with applied AI in a major financial institution. The source does not give details on the medal's criteria or on past recipients, but it presents Veloso's work in multiagent systems, robotics and finance as central to the recognition. For CMU, the honor also highlights the role of its alumni in shaping AI both in research and in industry.