About me
My name is Kaijia Chen, and I am a Ph.D. student in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Rice University, advised by Sasha Davydov at CARA Lab.
My research lies at the intersection of robotics, control, and machine learning, with the broader goal of developing the next generation of autonomous systems that people can trust. I focus on data-driven control methods that enable fast, complex physical systems to operate safely, reliably, and predictably in uncertain environments.
Currently: teaching a car to drift autonomously. 🏎️
In Spring 2025, I completed my Bachelor’s degree at Vanderbilt University, where I majored in Mechanical Engineering with a minor in Computer Science. During my undergraduate studies, I researched with Dr. Xiaoguang Dong at the Miniature Robotics Lab and Dr. David Braun at the Advanced Robotics & Control Lab. I also interned twice at Coloplast Corp. as an R&D Engineer, working on the design and development of medical devices.
Recent News
2026
- Oct 2026 – Poster Presentation at the Texas Colloquium on Distributed Learning 2026 (TL;DR) (Houston, TX)
2025
- Aug 2025 – Started Ph.D. program in Mechanical Engineering at Rice University. (Houston, TX)
- Jun 2025 – Interned as an R&D Engineer at Coloplast Interventional Urology. (Minneapolis, MN).
- May 2025 – Graduated with a Bachelor of Engineering from Vanderbilt University. (Nashville, TN)
- May 2025 – Received the Materials & Advanced Devices Award, Vanderbilt University Department of Mechanical Engineering.
- May 2025 – Certified as Engineer-in-Training (EIT) by the Tennessee Board of Architectural and Engineering Examiners.
- Apr 2025 – Passed the Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) Mechanical Exam (NCEES).
- Apr 2025 – Named co-inventor on U.S. provisional patent application No. 63/791,061, “Mechanically Actuated Implantable Finger Prosthesis.”
- Apr 2025 – Admitted to the Ph.D. program in Mechanical Engineering at Rice University (Fall 2025).
- Feb 2025 – Invited to Prospective Doctoral Students Weekend, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Columbia University. (New York City, NY)
- Jan 2025 – Co-authored Minimally invasive healing of bone implant-cement interfaces by aerogel cement and remote heating published in Device (Cell Press).
- Jan 2025 – Co-authored Predicting biaxial failure strengths of aortic tissues using a dispersed fiber failure model published in Extreme Mechanics Letters.
2024
- Sep 2024 – Completed a one-year undergraduate research project, “Designing High-Energy-Density Springs for Compliant Robots,” at Vanderbilt University’s Advanced Robotics & Control Lab (manuscript in preparation).
- Aug 2024 – Completed a Summer R&D Engineer internship at Coloplast Interventional Urology (Minneapolis, MN).