David L. Hu is an associate professor of mechanical engineering and biology at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. His work is funded by the National Science Foundation's Physics of Living Systems Program, a growing network of scientists applying the tools of physics and mathematics to create a new quantitative understanding of animal movement that can be applied to 21st century robotics. His research focuses on the importance of scales in snake locomotion, a concept he demonstrated by putting a snake into a sock on National Public Radio's Science Friday.