Tian "Tim" Chen
banner
ttc.bsky.social
Tian "Tim" Chen
@ttc.bsky.social
Assistant professor in Mechanical Engineering
@UHouston. We design programmable materials.
This is exciting. Thank you for inviting me!
October 22, 2025 at 3:52 AM
Concluding our mini-symposium with Julia Greer giving a talk to a full house at ses2025!
October 14, 2025 at 9:53 PM
On Monday, I am co-hosting three sessions. Come listen to the exciting talks on the advances on mechanical metamaterials!
October 13, 2025 at 4:27 AM
I am here with my students (Yue Wang and Ilyes Krida) at SES2025 hosted by @gatechengineers.bsky.social in Atlanta, GA! I am co-hosting 6.1: Advances on the Mechanics of Architected Materials, come attend our talks!
October 13, 2025 at 4:25 AM
This is cool!
A paper in Nature shows that parachute designs inspired by kirigami — the Japanese art of paper cutting to produce 3D designs — are stable and fall close to their target. These findings could simplify parachute manufacturing, reduce costs, and improve accuracy. go.nature.com/473OMmK 🧪
October 7, 2025 at 2:51 AM
Reposted by Tian "Tim" Chen
📢 I am so excited to share that I joined @cornelluniversity.bsky.social as an Assistant Professor this August, and our Scalable MetaStructures Laboratory (SCALE Lab) is starting up!
Can’t wait to share more as we grow our team and lab—we are hiring!
September 1, 2025 at 12:23 PM
Lovely to be attending a workshop on the “mathematics and physics of entangled metamaterials” in at Tohoku forum for creativity in Sendai, Japan. Thanks to Sam Poincloux for the invitation!
October 6, 2025 at 12:21 AM
Reposted by Tian "Tim" Chen
Our new ACM SIGGRAPH paper has received the Best Paper honorable mention, placing it among the top 5% of papers in an already very selective program.

C-Tubes: Design and Optimization of Tubular Structures Composed of Developable Strips

More info on the project: go.epfl.ch/c-tubes
June 16, 2025 at 12:39 PM
Reposted by Tian "Tim" Chen
Inverse Geometric Locomotion allows discovering optimal articulations for robots in dissipative media. The 4-triangle robot "learns" how to flap its wings to move forward or to rotate. The snake-like robot automatically adapts its articulation when a joint is broken.

More info: go.epfl.ch/igl
May 16, 2025 at 1:15 PM
Congratulations, great news !!
Samara Ren received the Eurographics PhD Award at the opening ceremony of the main Eurographics conference in London yesterday. Congratulations!!

Samara has established her research group at ISTA working on topics in Geometric Computing and Digital Fabrication: ista.ac.at/en/research/...
May 13, 2025 at 12:34 PM
I love the whistling at the end
TANK vs TESLA

"We've crushed fascism before and we'll crush it again"

- ⁠WW2 veteran Ken, 98, in the tank
May 9, 2025 at 2:46 PM
Reposted by Tian "Tim" Chen
HOUSTON IS GOING TO ITS FIRST NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP GAME SINCE 1984! #FinalFour #ForTheCity
April 6, 2025 at 4:00 AM
Looking forward to the 2025 SES Meeting in Atlanta, Oct. 12-15, 2025! Please contribute to our symp. "6.1 Mechanics of Architected Materials" before 5/15 - we'll discuss key opportunities+advancements in architected material research. Exp.+Comp.+Theory welcome! @carlosmportela.bsky.social
March 31, 2025 at 10:04 PM
Reposted by Tian "Tim" Chen
Please share widely: The Symposium on Advances in Architectural Geometry (AAG) will be hosted at MIT in Boston this year from Nov. 16-19!
More information: www.aag2025.com

The conference will be back-to-back with the Symposium on Computational Fabrication (scf.acm.org/2025/)
March 15, 2025 at 4:44 PM
Reposted by Tian "Tim" Chen
There are moments in these deportation fights when I can just FEEL how pissed off they are that I’m Puerto Rican 😂 they want to threaten me with it so bad 😂
February 20, 2025 at 5:32 PM
Reposted by Tian "Tim" Chen
Here you can see all of the positions your PI takes to fund the group
February 16, 2025 at 5:34 PM
Reposted by Tian "Tim" Chen
February 10, 2025 at 12:04 PM
Same!!
January 30, 2025 at 2:43 AM
Reposted by Tian "Tim" Chen
Yes, this administration is dangerous and cruel, but they are also shockingly dim and incompetent.

Opportunities are everywhere.

Make everything as hard as possible. Resist every demand. Refuse entry without a warrant. Don’t take the buyout. Their problem solving skills are 📉
January 30, 2025 at 2:35 AM
Reposted by Tian "Tim" Chen
Received this email from my chair tonight (🧵, 1/6):

"The DOE has issued new guidance indicating that, until further notice, there will be delays in any funding actions. Here’s what this means for projects pending or already awarded by DOE:
1. Pending Proposals: Awards will be postponed.
...
January 24, 2025 at 2:25 AM
Reposted by Tian "Tim" Chen
One thing about me is that I will fight Nazis until I’m six feet in the ground.
January 24, 2025 at 1:24 AM
I miss snow. But this feels allegorical.
January 23, 2025 at 1:50 PM
We developed a experimental & numerical framework for programmable CNC knitted fabrics. By tuning stitch length, pattern, and yarn, we can precisely engineer mechanical behavior - leading to the first industrially knit sleeve optimized for fit & function. arxiv.org/abs/2501.07567
January 14, 2025 at 2:01 PM
Reposted by Tian "Tim" Chen
Amen.
January 11, 2025 at 7:21 PM