Academic Credentials
  • Ph.D., Mechanical Engineering, Stanford University, 2019
  • M.S., Mechanical Engineering, Stanford University, 2016
  • B.S.E., Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, 2014
Licenses & Certifications
  • Professional Engineer Mechanical, California, #40923
Professional Honors
  • National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship, 2016
  • National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, 2016
  • Brit and Alex d’Arbeloff Stanford Graduate Fellowship in Science and Engineering, 2014
  • Princeton University Sau Hai Lam ‘58 Prize, 2014
  • Shapiro Prize for Academic Excellence, Princeton University, 2012
  • Honor Societies: Phi Beta Kappa (2014), Sigma Xi (2014), Tau Beta Pi (2013, 2014)

Dr. Chin specializes in mechanical design and analysis, mechanical testing, data acquisition, and fluid mechanics. She is also familiar with experimental and computational methods for structural analysis as well as digital image processing techniques. 

Dr. Chin has extensive experience designing and building custom mechanical test setups for measuring properties of materials, high frequency forces in complex mechanical systems, and other multiphysics phenomena. She uses her expertise to assist clients across a wide range of industries with mechanical design review, custom mechanical testing, and root-cause analyses.

Dr. Chin received her Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from Stanford University, where her research focused on designing, fabricating, and validating an experimental setup capable of resolving aerodynamic forces generated by freely flying birds and small aerial robots. This work involved designing and assembling custom fixtures with tight tolerances using a range of composite materials, as well as performing vibrational simulation, testing, and data analysis. Her research in aerodynamics and 3D kinematics of perch-to-perch flights is used to inform the design of more effective strategies for bimodal robots to transition to and from the air and perform aerial maneuvers. While at Stanford, Dr. Chin also completed autonomous robot and machine learning projects and served as a teaching assistant for the "Aerial Robot Design" graduate-level course.

Prior to joining Exponent, Dr. Chin completed two internships at Schlumberger, where she performed fatigue analysis in subsea landing strings and optimized structural elements through analytical and computational methods. Additionally, she conducted research in automatic control systems and computational fluid dynamics while completing her Bachelor's degree in mechanical and aerospace engineering at Princeton University. In addition to her Bachelor's degree, she also earned certificates in "Applications of Computing" and "Robotics and Intelligent Systems" from Princeton.