October 10, 2025, Webb Hall 1100

Predicting protein folding pathways—capturing the transient three-dimensional conformations of proteins under constrained entropy change rates—is a fundamental challenge in computational biology. We address this problem by formulating folding pathway prediction as a control synthesis problem, where control inputs guide the folding simulations. Our approach aligns the closed-loop dynamics with the kinetostatic compliance method (KCM) reference vector field while satisfying ellipsoidal constraints on the inputs.

Mark W. Spong received the D.Sc. degrees in systems science and mathematics in 1981 from Washington University in St. Louis. He has held faculty positions at Lehigh University, Cornell University, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and the University of Texas at Dallas. He is currently Professor of Systems Engineering and holds the Excellence in Education Chair at the University of Texas at Dallas. From 2008-2017 he was the Dean of the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science at UT-Dallas.
Dr. Spong is Past President of the IEEE Control Systems Society and Fellow of both the IEEE and IFAC. His main research interests are in robotics, mechatronics, and nonlinear control theory. He has authored or coauthored more than 350 technical articles in control and robotics, seven books and holds one patent. He has made fundamental contributions in robust and nonlinear control of robot manipulators, teleoperators, bipedal walking robots, and multi-robot systems.
His notable awards include the 2025 IFAC TC on Robotics Lifetime Achievement Award, the 2020 Rufus Oldenberger Medal from the ASME, the 2018 Bode Lecture Prize from the IEEE Control Systems Society, the 2016 Nyquist Lecture Prize from the ASME, the 2011 Pioneer in Robotics Award from the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society, the first IROS Fumio Harashima Award for Innovative Technologies in 2007, the IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology Outstanding Paper Award, the Senior Scientist Research Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the Distinguished Member Award from the IEEE Control Systems Society, the John R. Ragazzini and O. Hugo Schuck Awards from the American Automatic Control Council, and the IEEE Third Millennium Medal.