Rethink the Design and Manufacturing of Fibers and Textiles for Functional Applications

Fibers are ubiquitous in daily life, from clothing and electrical cables to optical fibers and even biological systems like mussels. Beyond these conventional roles, fibers and textiles emerge as key enablers in technologies such as wearable electronics, robotics, clean energy, and water purification. Unlocking these advanced applications requires innovations across materials, design, manufacturing, and system integration. In this seminar, Dr. Shou will share some of their progress on scalable tactile textiles for human–environment interactions, advanced fiber systems for clean energy and water, and recent efforts in fiber-enabled robots. As a researcher educated in textile science and engineering, he is rethinking possible revolution for fiber and textile industry from the perspective of materials, design, manufacturing and applications.      

Dr. Wan Shou is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Arkansas (UArk). Prior to joining UArk, he was a postdoc associate in the Computational Design and Fabrication Group at MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), with affiliations in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) and Mechanical Engineering, from 2019 to 2021. He received his Ph.D. degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Missouri University of Science and Technology in 2018. He obtained his bachelor’s degree in textile science and engineering from Tianjin Polytechnic University in 2012. Dr. Shou’s research is highly interdisciplinary, spanning advanced materials development for manufacturing, innovative manufacturing processes, and functional devices (including electronic and robotic systems). He strives to harness fundamental insights into material transformation and first principles to create transformative manufacturing technologies. He has published over 50 peer-reviewed journal articles, including Nature Electronics, Science Advances, and Advanced Materials, with more than 3800 citations and an h-index of 31. Several of his works were featured as journal front covers and highlighted by major media outlets. He holds 3 U.S. patents and has delivered several keynote talks at international conferences. His research has been supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).