MSE Colloquium Series Speaker Trisha L. Andrew

Trisha L. Andrew

University of Massachusetts Amherst

Associate Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering; Director of the Wearable Electronics Lab

Faculty Host: Malika Jeffries-El

Student Host: Alfred Burney-Allen

Refreshments at 2:45 PM

Title: Polymer Films Created by Reactive Vapor Deposition and Their Application in Wearable Electronics

Abstract:

Efforts in using reactive vapor deposition to create functional polymer films on nontraditional substrates will be described. Vapor coating methods allow for rough and/or fragile substrates to be nondestructively coated with a variety of polymer films. To date, various off-the-shelf garments, commercial textiles, threads/yarns, plant leaves, and flower petals have been conformally coated with either electronic-polymer or polyacrylate films. Selected technologies created using vapor-coated fibers, textiles and plant matter will be described, including smart joint braces for movement sensing; garments for sleep monitoring; lightweight, small-form-factor supercapacitors that can be sewed or knitted into garments for wearable and portable energy storage; and flexible electrodes for bioimpedance spectroscopy.

Bio:

Trisha L. Andrew is a Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She directs the Wearable Electronics Lab, a multi-disciplinary research team that produces garment-integrated technologies using reactive vapor deposition. Trisha started her career as an Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Electrical Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, after receiving her Ph.D. from MIT in 2011. She is a David and Lucile Packard Foundation Fellow, a National Academy of Sciences Kavli Fellow, a L’Oréal USA For Women in Science Fellow, and was named as one Forbes’ magazine “30 Under 30” Innovators in Energy.