About Me:

Welcome! My name is Mallory Gaspard, and I am a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Leonard Lab at Princeton University, mentored by Professor Naomi Ehrich Leonard. As an applied mathematician, I am broadly inspired by developing mathematical approaches to problems involving decision-making and optimal control under uncertainty, particularly those arising in robotic and biological contexts. The research projects that I am currently involved in generally fall into two thrusts:

• Utilizing mathematical modeling and tools from dynamical systems theory, optimization, and control to improve and enhance the decision-making process in robotic systems operating in dynamic environments. 

  • Application Areas: Robotic navigation and control, AI-assisted driving.

• Developing approaches to optimal control under uncertainty in order to better understand how living systems should (or should not!) behave amidst chronic disturbances.

  • Application Areas: Optimal life history event timing and planning. (With Simon Levin and Carla Staver)

Prior to starting my postdoc at Princeton, I completed my Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics in June 2025 at Cornell University. During my time at Cornell, I was advised by Alex Vladimirsky. I was fortunate to be an NDSEG Fellow (Fellowship Tenure: 2020-2023) and to have been supported by an NSF RTG grant (Spring 2024). My Ph.D. thesis work focused on the development of optimal control frameworks which could be applied in situations characterized by transitional uncertainty (i.e., uncertainty in the system's next state after initiating a transition from the current state) or temporal uncertainty (i.e., uncertainty in the length of the planning horizon). These approaches were rooted in dynamic programming, and were applied to problems in transportation, autonomous vehicle routing, and biology. Please see this page for a copy of my Ph.D. thesis. In December 2018, I completed my Bachelor's degree in Mathematics and Applied Physics at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in Troy, NY. 

If you'd like to get in touch, don't hesitate to reach out!