Hi, I’m
Victoria Rojas
Mechanical engineer at USC
About
I’m a mechanical engineering student at USC Viterbi, graduating in 2028. I build test hardware: rigs that hold position to microns, read forces in millinewtons, and give data you can trust.
I like owning a system end to end, from the force analysis through machining and assembly to the code that runs it, and then the debugging when the data looks wrong. Right now that’s a wafer-spalling system at Packard Research Group, nickel-plating process work in the USC nanofabrication cleanroom, and drivetrain design for the recumbent vehicle team.

Selected work
Precision wafer-spalling system
A hinged-lid rig that touches a load cell down onto silicon wafers, repeatable to 2.1 µm. Owned end to end: concept, CAD, machining, Python control and verification testing.
Read the case study
Nanofabrication cleanroom research
Qualified to run the Class 1000 cleanroom toolset on my own, from lithography and plasma etch to PECVD, sputtering and e-beam. Ran etch and ALD calibrations for the lab’s shared process records, and developed a Ti/Ni seed layer that cut nickel plating failures by 75%.
Read about this roleX–Y gantry testbed
A reconfigurable gantry that runs a full test grid in Mars regolith simulant with one command. Still in use in the lab.
Read the case study
Recumbent vehicle drivetrain
Drivetrain design for USC’s human-powered vehicle, 1st place in design at ASME eHPVC in 2025 and 2026.
Read the case studyRecognition
- 2025, 2026
1st place in design, ASME eHPVCBoth years with the USC recumbent vehicle team. 2nd overall in 2026 and the Best Innovation Award in 2025.
- 2026Jane Street INSIGHT, Strategy and Product
One of 37 selected.
- 20263rd place, Anthropic Claude Builder Hackathon at UCLA
Cross-disciplinary team building an AI accessibility agent for iOS.
- 2024–25USC Viterbi Japan Engineering Program
$4,000 scholarship.
