Chemical engineer qualifies to compete in the US Women’s Open

The summer after finishing her PhD in chemical engineering at MIT, Kimberly Dinh, SM ’17, PhD ’20, decided to enter a golf tournament on a lark. She ended up winning. 

“That exceeded my expectations,” says Dinh, who grew up golfing but hadn’t played competitively in years. The 2020 win “really reignited that competitive itch,” she adds. Most recently, she earned a spot in the 2024 US Women’s Open, one of the top tournaments in women’s golf.

Dinh, who works as an associate research scientist at the multinational chemical company Dow, first got interested in the sport as a child when her father “caught the golf bug,” she says. “I played in my first tournament when I was 10 or 11. By high school, I realized I was fairly successful and just kept working at it.” 

JEFF HAYNES

She was on the golf team as an undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin but decided to step away from competition to pursue her doctorate. “I didn’t really have the time to spend on it while at MIT. I wanted to explore other interests and have other experiences during grad school,” she says. 

Having completed her PhD in May 2020, Dinh took the summer off before starting at Dow. When the pandemic foiled her travel plans, she filled her time with golf and continued to find unexpected success. That same year, she also became the vice president of the MIT Alumni Golfers Association, a title she still holds. 

At Dow, much of Dinh’s research involves finding ways to perform chemical reactions more efficiently—for example, at milder conditions, lower temperatures, or lower pressures. The work is important, she says, because it can reduce the carbon footprint of chemical manufacturing. 

Although she has to make an effort these days to find time to play, as a mid-amateur golfer—a category for those who are past high school and college competition and often have full-time jobs—she has a more relaxed mindset about the sport than she did in college. But she thinks her professional background improves her game: “My experience in science makes me better at being methodical, having routines, and attacking problems step by step,” she says. The patience her career has cultivated paid off. In September 2023 she won the US Women’s Mid-Amateur at Stonewall in Elverson, PA—the most prestigious such title in the world—which was her ticket to the Women’s Open.