Rebecca Y. E. Lin

Rebecca Y. E. Lin — research, art, and teaching

I design computational languages and systems that open up new ways of thinking, making, and playing.

I’m a researcher and designer, and an EECS PhD candidate at MIT CSAIL, advised by Erik Demaine. I’ve invented systems for garment making at Roblox and Adobe, and explored code as a creative medium at the MIT Media Lab.

My work has been supported by the MIT MAD Design Fellowship, the MIT Stata Family Presidential Fellowship, the NSERC Postgraduate Scholarship, and the MathWorks Engineering Fellowship.

Rebecca Lin painting a geometric model outside the Stata Center
Painting on my favorite balcony between the two towers of Stata Center.

Systems

Selected research projects I’ve led, in collaboration with the colleagues credited below.

PieceWise: four source T-shirts remixed into four garments on mannequins

PieceWise: An Evolving Inventory of Remixable T-Shirt Parts for Repeated Upcycling

Rebecca Lin, Lucy Zhao, Esther Lin, Mackenzie Leake

How can we upcycle garments again and again? By treating old T-shirts as an evolving inventory of remixable parts and standardizing their interfaces rather than their dimensions, PieceWise enables systematic, repeated reuse.

Demo· Workshop
Refashion: reusable fabric modules assembled into trousers and a dress

Refashion: Reconfigurable Garments via Modular Design

UIST 2025 · Rebecca Lin, Michal Lukáč, Mackenzie Leake

How can we design garments for change and reuse? By treating garments as dynamic assemblies rather than static products, Refashion enables users to remix their garments on demand.

Project Page· MIT News· MIT MAD

Graph Threading

ITCS 2024 · (a-b) Erik D. Demaine, Yael Kirkpatrick, Rebecca Lin

How can we thread tubes with a single string to achieve a target connectivity when the string is pulled taut? By casting "threadings" as constrained walks on graphs, we give efficient algorithms for computing minimum-length threadings.Zhecheng sent me a video of a deployable bamboo sculpture by the wonderful Alison Martin, and the rest was history.

X Thread· arXiv· Routing Reconfigurations
Constellation Patterns project teaser

Encoding-Decoding Constellations

Rebecca Lin, Craig S. Kaplan

How can we create constellation patterns with unconventional star arrangements? By representing constellations as mathematical graphs, we reveal an alternative language for reasoning about and creating constellations.

Exhibition· Blog· X· Try It Yourself
More on Google Scholar

Artifacts

Black and white geometric rosette print
Framed rosette artwork on a blue wall
Close-up of gold rosette forms casting patterned shadows on a pale surface
Garments on mannequins beside a studio desk
Illuminated layered text artwork against a dark background
Front view of a miniature dress form wearing a black rosette-patterned skirt

Teaching

Teaching assistantships at MIT (20 hours per week) and UBC (12 hours per week).

  • 23–26
    Preparation for Undergraduate Research
    Design and Analysis of Algorithms (×3)
    Fundamentals of Programming
  • 20–21
    Intermediate Algorithm Analysis and Design
    Basic Algorithms and Data Structures
  • 20–22
    Creative Coding

Living Logs

Gratitude

I’m grateful for my family, friends, and mentors. Particular thanks to my sister, Esther; to Linghao, Tim, Yael, and Surya; and to Mackenzie, who has been like a second advisor to me. I am also grateful to Will, who introduced me to research; to Craig, who introduced me to mathematical art; to Sarah, for teaching me about craft; and to Katherine, for making so much of my creative and research work possible.