Stephen Baek

Bio

"Geometry plays a critical role in science and engineering. Our mission is to quantify the roles played by shapes through the lenses of machine learning."

Stephen Baek is an Associate Professor of Data Science at the University of Virginia, where he also holds a courtesy appointment in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. Baek received his B.S. in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from Seoul National University (SNU), Seoul, Korea in 2009 and a Ph.D. in 2013 from the same institution for his award-winning study on the statistical space of shapes modeled on a Riemannian manifold. He was a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for Advanced Machinery Design in SNU from 2013 to 2015 and a visiting research associate at the Ronald E. McNair Center for Aerospace Innovation and Research at the University of South Carolina in 2014. During his training, Baek received the National Science and Engineering Scholarship and the Global Ph.D. Fellowship from the Korean Ministry of Education. He was also awarded the Presidential Postdoc Fellowship from the President of the Republic of Korea. Prior to joining the University of Virginia, Baek spent 6 years as an Assistant Professor at the University of Iowa.