I am a Research Scientist in the Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering at the University of Florida, USA. My research focuses on categorical and sheaf-theoretic methods for compositional modeling, with applications to chemistry, control theory and dynamical systems.
Before this position, I was a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Florida, USA. Before moving to the USA, I was a PhD student at the Bioinformatics Group, University of Leipzig, and at the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences, Germany. My advisors were Peter F. Stadler & Juergen Jost.
My main fields of interest are:
- Category theory and sheaf theory in dynamical systems and control theory
- Compositional and categorical models in chemistry
- Mathematics of data and time-varying systems
- Hypernetwork science
- Formal and computational history of chemistry
What is new?
July 2026 – Our paper “From Local to Global: Sheaf-Theoretic Control Barrier Functions on Manifolds”, was accepted for publication in the Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC), 2026.
May 2026 – I gave an invited lecture at the ACC 2026 Workshop: Applied Category Theory for Compositional Decision Making, within the 2026 American Control Conference (ACC) in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA.
May 2026 – Our paper “Whitney Control Barrier Functions: A Mesh-based Geometric Approach via Discrete Exterior Calculus”, was accepted for publication in the Proceedings of the 23rd IFAC World Congress, to be held in Busan, Republic of Korea, in August 2026.
April 2026 – Our article “Towards a Unified Theory of Time-varying Data” appeared online in Applied Categorical Structures. You can read it here.
March 2026 – Our article “Towards a Unified Theory of Time-varying Data” was accepted for publication in Applied Categorical Structures!
January 2026 – Started my position as a Research Scientist in the Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, working at the interface of category theory, dynamical systems, and control.
November 2025 – Gave an invited lecture titled “Sheaves in time-varying data and dynamical systems” at the Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, University of Florida.
October 2025 – Gave a talk titled “Computing fixed points of CTLNs with separated presheaves, sheaves and dynamic programming” at the 2025 Category Theory Octoberfest (online).
August 2025 – Our article “Diachronic data analysis supports and refines conceptual metaphor theory” appeared in PLOS Complex Systems.
March 2025 – Our paper “Dialectica Petri nets”, co-authored with Elena Di Lavore and Valeria de Paiva, was accepted for publication in Fundamenta Informaticae.
July 2024 – Co-organized a mini-course and special session on Applied Category Theory at the Colombian Congress of Applied and Industrial Mathematics (MAPI III).
July 2024 – Presented our work “Towards a Unified Theory of Time-Varying Data” at ACT 2024 (Oxford).
May 2024 – Submitted two grant proposals to the NSF and USDA focused on open-source tools for chemical process design and sustainable biorefineries.
January 2023 – Started a postdoctoral position at the University of Florida, working at the intersection of computer science, chemical engineering, and category theory.
December 2022 – Completed my PhD in Computer Science at Leipzig University and the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences with the highest honors (summa cum laude).
June 2022 – Participated in the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting (Chemistry), nominated by the Max Planck Society.
May 2022 – Our paper The expansion of chemical space in 1826 and in the 1840s prompted the convergence to the periodic system was published in PNAS.
May 2022 – Featured in a Max Planck Institute press release celebrating my thesis defense.
2021 – Presented at the Max Planck Scientific Advisory Board meeting as part of the institute’s internal evaluation.
Summer 2020 – Participated in the Applied Category Theory Adjoint School hosted by MIT.
April 2019 – Our paper Formal structure of periodic system of elements was featured on the cover of Proceedings of the Royal Society A.
June 2019 – Research featured by Chemical & Engineering News, Der Standard, Springer Professional, and the Max Planck Society.
Email: wleal at ufl.edu
Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering
University of Florida
New Engineering Building
1064 Center Dr
Gainesville, FL 32611
USA
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