Rebecca Y. E. Lin

I design computational systems where mathematics and materials become forms for thinking, making, and playingplay as method,
wonder as guide.

I'm an EECS PhD student at MIT CSAIL, advised by Erik Demaine. I was also fortunate to be advised by Zach Lieberman at the MIT Media Lab. My work is supported by the MIT MAD Design Fellowship, the NSERC Postgraduate Scholarship, and the MIT Stata Family Presidential Fellowship.

My time at MIT is a collage of research, teaching, art-making, and collecting photos, words, and so A photo for so many A photo for many plants Plants on my windowsill .

Before MIT, I was advised by the wonderful Will Evans, Alla Sheffer, Craig Kaplan, and Nick Harvey.

Logs

04.26
Several of my favorite art pieces, including Disintegrating and Yearning, will be displayed in the mathematics department at UC Santa Cruz.
02.26
I'll be at Roblox in San Mateo this summer as a Research Scientist Intern.
11.25
My exhibition Encoding-Decoding Constellations will be on display at the Wiesner Gallery from December 2025 through January 2026. Check out this article about my work and process.
10.25
Presenting a poster and demo of Refashion at SCF 2025, hosted here at MIT.
07.25 🇰🇷
Refashion, my first HCI paper, will be presented and demoed at UIST 2025 in Busan, South Korea.
07.25
all these things i want to tell you, and yet i can't find the words is appearing at MathFest 2025.
04.25
Incredibly grateful to be named a 2025 MAD Design Fellow!
03.25 🇳🇱
Spiraling will be on display at public art exhibition Intersections (featured on KING5 Evening) and presented at Bridges 2025 in Eindhoven, Netherlands.
01.25
Disintegrating received an honorable mention at the JMM 2025 Art Exhibition, was featured in the New York Times, and selected for the American Mathematical Society's 2026 calendar!
08.24
Joining Future Sketches at the Media Lab in Fall 2024!
07.24 🇩🇰
Demoing a proof of concept, Routing Reconfigurations, at SCF 2024 in Aarhus, Denmark.
05.24
Interning at Adobe Research in San Francisco with Mackenzie Leake.
01.24
Presenting my paper Graph Threading at ITCS 2024 in Berkeley, CA.
06.23 🇯🇵
Visiting the Origami Lab at the University of Tokyo this summer!
04.22
I'm starting my PhD at MIT in Fall 2022. Grateful to my advisors Will Evans, Craig Kaplan, Alla Sheffer, et al. for fostering my curiosity and creativity, and for their advocacy.

Systems

I build tools that reimagine material systems as computational playgroundsInstead of solutions for problems, programmes for solutions — Karl Gerstner, inviting users to play with structure, wander through constraints, and discover new possibilities.

Human-Computer InteractionComputational Design

Refashion: Reconfigurable Garments via Modular Design

UIST 2025 · Rebecca Lin, Michal Lukáč, Mackenzie Leake

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

Project Page· MIT News· MIT MAD

TheoryFabrication

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 recasting "threadings" as constrained walks on graphs, we give efficient algorithms for computing minimum-length threadings.

X Thread· arXiv

Mathematical ArtComputational Design

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