ABOUT

I am currently a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Apparel, Educational Studies, and Hospitality Management at Iowa State University (ISU), and expect to fully complete my Ph.D. degree requirements by May 2016.

My research areas are:

1. Sustainability:

Engaging sustainability in wearable product design including developing and testing a variety of natural dye materials and methods, and applying them to wearable products; upcycling second-hand materials to create contemporary garments and wearable arts that alleviate the impacts of environmental problems.

Utilizing traditional handcrafts on slow fashion designs, including free form machine embroidery, hand embroidery, hand beading, and felting techniques.

2. New Technologies:

Applying technologies to wearable product design (digital printing, 3D body scanning, laser cutting, 3D printing).

Employing 3D body scanning technology to analyze body shapes, body satisfaction, and the effectiveness of functional wearable products.

3. Design Process Model:

Investigating the existing design process models and proposing a new design process model for wearable art design, and developing an evaluation method for wearable art designers (dissertation topic).

4. Pedagogy of Apparel Design:

Studying and examining the effectiveness of applying a variety of teaching strategies in apparel design classes.