Active fluids comprised of reconstituted biopolymers and motor proteins are self-driven materials that exhibit rich spatiotemporal dynamics. These dynamics are characterized by buckling instabilities and the proliferation of topological defects in orientational order. These defects drive material flows and give the system its striking, characteristic texture and dynamics. One of the grand challenges of active soft matter physics is aimed at controlling these materials to exhibit desired spatiotemporal patterns. In my talk, I’ll outline how we approach this challenge using a combination of fluid dynamics, PDE-constrained control theory, and reaction-diffusion processes. I’ll propose frameworks for two kinds of control strategies: those that come from external fields and those generated from within the material itself.