After having received her PhD in Electrical Engineering from MIT this past spring, Rachel Yang has joined the Olin faculty as an assistant professor of electrical engineering.
The biggest thing that I look forward to at Olin is being part of the community
Everyone is very collegial and welcoming, and the students, faculty, and staff all take engineering education very seriously.
Rachel Yang
Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering
Yang鈥檚 research expertise lies in designing and modeling magnetic components for power electronics to improve the efficiency and performance of energy systems, such as data centers, electric vehicles, and renewable energy systems.
鈥淲orking on energy systems is about figuring out how to get electricity from one place to another, and a lot of the research tries to make things more energy efficient, lighter, and smaller,鈥 says Yang. 鈥淥ne of the bottlenecks with this are the magnetic components because they fundamentally do not scale in size the same way that other components do. This is where I focus my work鈥攊t鈥檚 a really interesting problem because you have to play games with physics and rethink your assumptions about how things work.鈥
While at MIT, Yang also coached students in a variety of non-technical subjects, such as writing, technical communications, and presentation skills, both one-on-one and through workshops. In her free time, she is an avid writer, including video scripts for YouTube channels such as and
鈥淲orking on energy systems is about figuring out how to get electricity from one place to another, and a lot of the research tries to make things more energy efficient, lighter, and smaller,鈥 says Rachel Yang, Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering."
Yang has received the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, the MIT School of Engineering Distinguished Energy Efficiency Fellowship, and the MIT E.E. Landsman Fellowship.
This fall, Yang will teach 鈥淢odeling + Simulation鈥 (also known as 鈥淢odSim鈥), followed by 鈥淚ntroduction to Sensors, Instrumentation, and Measurement鈥 in the spring. 鈥淚鈥檓 excited to meet all these interesting people doing cool things at Olin and to get to work with some of them,鈥 says Yang. 鈥淭he College鈥檚 hands-on, studio-based learning approach is something I鈥檓 looking forward to engaging with.鈥