David Melancon is an assistant professor in the Mechanical Engineering Department at Polytechnique Montreal. He is the co-director of the Laboratory for Multiscale Mechanics (LM2), and his research interests are mainly related to the embodiment of physical intelligence in highly deformable structures. This means integrating complex and multiple functionalities in engineering systems (e.g., actuation, sensing, and control) by exploiting non-linear, geometry-driven phenomena found when inflating, folding, cutting, and shaping matter. He develops theoretical, numerical, and experimental tools to tune and apply these phenomena in the fields of (1) origami and kirigami inspired deployable structures, (2) instability-driven soft robots, and (3) 3d-printed mechanical metamaterials.