Responsive Environments textile researchers: Irmandy Wicaksono and Juliana Cherston are presenting their PhD work in Emerging Technologies Conference: Advanced Textiles Expo organized by Advanced Textiles Association in Anaheim Convention Center, Los Angeles, CA. 

Textile Macroelectronics: Architecting Sensate Fabrics Across Scales 

Irmandy Wicaksono, Hybrid Electrical-Textile Engineer, Artist, and Designer, PhD Candidate, MIT Media Lab

Textiles are omnipresent and some of the oldest forms of arts and culture in human civilization. They are our protective skin, the interface between our body and the environment, and artistic media for self-expression. As electronics become more soft, compliant, miniaturized, and low-cost, textiles provide an ideal technology integration substrate to further drive the ubiquitous computing and personalized telemedicine era. My research combines recent advances in functional materials, microelectronics, hardware systems, digital fabrication, and immersive technologies to develop sensate fabrics across scales.

In this talk, explore various methods in sensate fabric development using functional fibers, digital machine knitting, and printed circuits to create e-textiles with tunable electrical and mechanical properties and computational capabilities for applications in HCI, health, musical expression, and interactive environments.

The Well-Dressed Spacecraft: academic partnerships for accelerating advanced textiles into the 'New Space' economy 

Dr. Juliana Cherston, Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian; Consultant on Emerging Technology

In this classroom session, Dr. Juliana Cherston will offer a case study on a partnership between her research group at MIT and collaborators from industry to bring the first electronic textile to the International Space Station. In addition to sharing details on the project itself, she will offer a retrospective on successes and challenges in how to structure partnerships, scope project timelines, and manage deliverables. Juliana will also offer a broad sense for the landscape of opportunity when it comes to textiles in space, both near term and far future.