Ryan Chin

Bio

Dr. Ryan Chin is the Managing Director of the Sustainable Mobility Center (SMC) at Stanford University, where he leads strategy, partnerships, and translational initiatives to accelerate the shift toward sustainable, affordable, and secure transportation systems across land (ground), sea (marine), and air (aviation) mobility. He convenes leaders across industry, government, and academia to advance scalable solutions spanning autonomy, AI, electrification, resilient infrastructure, innovative financing models, and public policy. Under his leadership, the Center focuses on moving breakthrough research into real-world pilots and deployments—aligning technology innovation with policy, market adoption, and measurable climate and societal impact across multimodal transportation ecosystems.

Over the past decade, Dr. Chin has been a serial entrepreneur and C-level leader, co-founding two venture-backed companies at the forefront of mobility and climate innovation. As Co-founder and CEO of Optimus Ride, an MIT spinout autonomous vehicle company, he helped build and lead multidisciplinary teams across AI, engineering, product, and operations, raising over $125M from leading investors including Emerson Collective, Reid Hoffman, and Eric Chen. Optimus Ride was acquired by Magna International in 2021. He also co-founded TRAM Global, a climate technology venture leveraging digital marketplaces to incentivize and verify carbon-reducing consumer behaviors. Prior to his entrepreneurial career, he spent 18 years at MIT pioneering Smart City concepts and leading the development of the CityCar in collaboration with General Motors and architect Frank Gehry—named “Automotive Invention of the Year” by Time Magazine in 2007. He has advised industry and government agencies, including serving on the 2015 working group on “Technology and the Future of Cities” for the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, and holds a Ph.D. and M.S. in Media Arts and Sciences and a Master of Architecture from MIT.

Current Role at Stanford

Managing Director, Sustainable Mobility Center (SMC), Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability, Precourt Institute of Energy

Honors & Awards

• $100K Buckminster Fuller Challenge, 1st Prize, Buckminster Fuller Institute (2009)
• "Automotive Invention of the Year" for the MIT CityCar, Time Magazine (2007)
• Best and Brightest, Top 42 Innovators, Esquire Magazine, (2006)
• “Library for the Information age,” First Prize winner, ACADIA International Design Competition (1998)