*Faculty Advisor Targeted Escape in Large Oscillator Networks Embracing instability as a means for global network re-conformation

There are many people that helped make the work in this thesis possible. First and foremost I would like to thank my faculty advisor Igor Mezic ́ who gave me invaluable insight while also giving me the breathing room to chart some aspects of my own research direction. In addition to this, other faculty in the Mechanical Engineering department at UCSB helped to guide me through this work including Jeff Moehlis who is an excellent instructor. Karl Johan Åström, who is only at UCSB for portions of the year gave me good research ideas and also acted as a role model with respect to everything else involved with academic life. His energy and passion for this field is extraordinary. I also received much help from many outside of UCSB (at UTRC) including Clas Jacobson, Scott Bortoff, and Andrzej Banaszuk (Andrzej has been a mentor of mine for over a decade now). I would also like to acknowledge the informal discussions with my colleagues at other universities including Thordur Runolfsson (UO), Prabir Barooah (UF), Prashant Mehta (UIUC), and Umesh Vaidya (ISU). It was pleasant to work with the other group members in Igor’s group and I especially thank Yueheng Lan for his long technical discussions about my research. For the DNA work, there was some initial interaction with Jerry Marsden and Philip DuToit (both from Caltech) which helped give me a head start on my results. None of this work would be possible without the support of my friends an