HensWEAR

Mobility is a key determinant of quality of life throughout the human lifespan, ranging from early childhood development and learning, to healthy physical activity and peak sports performance, to maintaining independence into advanced age. Building on the University of Delaware’s national prominence in rehabilitation, materials science, physical therapy, and fashion and apparel studies, we seek to establish a core group of researchers and partners to create innovative functional garments and related materials to enhance mobility. This expertise, coupled with the development of the STAR campus, improvements in athletics facilities, and establishment of maker spaces and additive manufacturing capabilities, points to enormous opportunities for UD.

Our Mission:

  • Establish a core group of researchers and partners to create innovative functional garments and materials
  • Employ state-of-the-art methods of materials/fabrics processing, fabrication, functionalization and testing with applications ranging from improving mobility, facilitating recovery and improving/monitoring performance
  • Engage a broad community of participants among the academic units at UD, clinical partners and Athletics

For more information, please see the HensWEAR page.

1st Annual HensWEAR Symposium

The 1st Annual HensWEAR Symposium took place on February 21st at the University of Delaware Health Science Complex in the North Atrium.  The goal of the symposium was to help build a community of researchers at the University of Delaware focused on smart wearables and their application to mobility. 

Keynote Speaker:  Professor Lucy Dunne (pictured left) from the University of Minnesota

Title: At the Intersection of Human and Device: Challenges and Opportunities for Interdisciplinary Development of Wearable Technology

 
Bio: Lucy E. Dunne is a Professor at the University of Minnesota, where she directs the Apparel Design program and is the founder and co-director of the Wearable Technology Lab. She is a co-author (with Susan Watkins) of “Functional Apparel Design: From Sportswear to Space Suits” (Bloomsbury, 2015), and her academic background includes degrees in Apparel Design (Cornell University, BS and MA), Electronic Engineering (Tompkins-Cortland Community College, AAS), and Computer Science (University College Dublin, PhD). Her research is focused on pursuing the vision of scalable, wearable garment-integrated technology, and explores new functionality in apparel, human-device interface, production and manufacture, and human factors of wearable products. Dr. Dunne has received the National Science Foundation’s CAREER award and the NASA Silver Achievement Medal for her work with functional clothing and wearable technology.