Stanford Energy Seminar | The Power of Grand Challenges in Mobility | Ryan Chin, Sustainable Mobility Center, Stanford Precourt Institute for Energy

The Stanford Energy Seminar has been a mainstay of energy engagement at Stanford for nearly 20 years and is one of the flagship programs of the Precourt Institute for Energy. We aim to bring a wide variety of perspectives to the Stanford community – academics, entrepreneurs, utilities, non-profits, and more. 

About the talk

Dr. Ryan Chin will share the vision for the Sustainable Mobility Center (SMC). Dr. Chin will discuss how grand challenges are powerful instruments for making non-incremental impact on sustainable mobility at a global level. He will also share his previous work on electric, shared, and autonomous mobility systems in both academic (MIT) and commercial (Optimus Ride, Inc.) environments. 

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.

Anyone with an interest in energy is welcome to join! You can enjoy seminars in the following ways:

• Attend live. The auditorium may change quarter by quarter, so check each seminar event to confirm the location. Explore the current quarter's schedule.
• Watch live in a browser livestream if available. Check each seminar event for its unique livestream URL.
• Watch recordings of past seminars 
  • Available on the Past Energy Seminars page and the Energy Seminars playlist of the Stanford Energy YouTube channel
• (For students) Take the seminar as a 1-unit class (CEE 301/ENERGY 301/MS&E 494)

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