Mehmet Z. Baykara is an Associate Professor and Vice Chair at the Department of Mechanical Engineering at UC Merced, where he leads a research group specializing in atomic force microscopy. He obtained his B.S. degree from Boğaziçi University in Istanbul, and his Ph.D. degree from Yale University. Prior to joining UC Merced, he worked at Bilkent, Columbia, and Harvard. Mehmet co-authored papers in journals including ACS Nano, Nano Letters, Nature Communications, and Nature Nanotechnology, and regularly gives invited seminars at research institutes and universities around the world. He is the recipient of multiple awards, including those from the American Vacuum Society (AVS), Materials Research Society (MRS), and the German Physical Society (DPG).