Chiara Daraio is the G. Bradford Jones Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Physics at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and an Investigator of the Heritage Medical Research Institute. Her research focuses on developing new materials and metamaterials with advanced mechanical and sensing properties, for applications in robotics, wearable medical devices, and vibration absorption. Her group has developed novel materials and methods for acoustic imaging, thermal sensing, and health monitoring, and, more recently, materials derived from engineered living systems and haptic interfaces for human–computer interaction.
Born and educated in Italy, she received her undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Università Politecnica delle Marche (2001), and her M.S. (2003) and Ph.D. (2006) degrees in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of California, San Diego (USA). She joined the Caltech faculty in 2006 and was promoted to full professor in 2010. From 2013 to 2016, she held the Chair of Mechanics and Materials at ETH Zürich, Switzerland, before returning to Caltech. Since 2022, she has served as a Director of Research at Meta Reality Labs, where she leads research on new materials for smart glasses, robotics, and haptic interfaces.
Her honors include the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), conferred by President Barack Obama (2012), the Sloan Research Fellowship (2011), the US Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award (2010), the NSF CAREER Award (2009), and the Richard von Mises Prize (2008). She received the “Gentile da Fabriano” Prize for Science, Research and Innovation in 2013 and was recognized as an outstanding alumna by the University of California, San Diego, in 2018. Popular Science magazine selected her among its "Brilliant 10" (2010). She has served on the Board of Editors of the journal Science (AAAS) and as Associate Editor for the journals Matter, Extreme Mechanics Letters, Multifunctional Materials, and the Journal of Strain Analysis.
She is the author of numerous scientific publications, book chapters, and patents. Her work has been exhibited at the Milken Center for Advancing the American Dream, in Washington DC (2023), and at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum (2011). Her innovations have been featured by media outlets such as The New York Times, National Geographic, and Scientific American, and she has appeared on television and radio programs, including CNN, NPR, and PBS.