Much of his work has been in the area of experimental design, response surface methodology, quality engineering, statistical process control and reliability. These area involved with a wide varieties of well developed statistical tools, such as statistical modeling, bayesian inference, optimal design theory, optimization, time series, distribution theory, etc. The need of new experimental design arises because designing industrial experimentation is very different from designing agriculture experimentation. Dr. Lin has developed a series of small size experimental designs for various stages of industrial problems. Dr. Lin's interest in this area mainly focused on multiple response problems.
Reliability is also a well developed topic in industries.
Others research agenda of Dr. Lin includes Kalman Filter, Number Theory, Computer Experiment, and Uniform Design, etc. He is an elected member of the International Statistical Institute, a senior member of American Society for Quality Control, a member of American Statistical Association and a lifetime member of International Chinese Statistical Association.