melvin leok received his ph.d. in control and dynamical systems from caltech in 2004. prior to joining ucsd in 2009, he was an assistant professor of mathematics at purdue university, a visiting assistant professor of control and dynamical systems at the california institute of technology, and a t.h. hildebrandt research assistant professor of mathematics at the university of michigan, ann arbor. leok's research is on computational geometric mechanics, which is an area of computational and applied mathematics with increasingly important applications to modern science and engineering. leok's work uses a synthesis of differential geometric and numerical analysis techniques to provide long-time solutions to differential equations that are stable and robust, and thus provide methods for modeling and controlling modern engineering systems.