Promoting the Health of Individuals, Families and Communities

Textiles are essential to our daily lives. Over the course of a day, we use textile based products for a variety of purposes. For example, we:

• Carry our books, lunch or snacks to campus in some textile based carrier or container.
• Wear insulated clothing to protect us from biting cold.
• Use textiles to keep our living environments safe, comfortable, or energy efficient.
• Use textiles to protect ourselves from infection when we happen to cut ourselves.
• Use textiles to impress potential employers or others who may have a significant impact on our personal or professional lives.

Textiles also make remarkable contributions to experiences that are not within our daily experiences. For example, textiles can be used to:

• Protect police officers or their service dogs from being hurt while they are on duty.
• Protect healthcare workers from infection.
• Protect first responders from potentially hazardous substances.
• Help broken limbs heal faster and make the healing process easier to endure.

To appreciate the role of textiles in our daily lives, we need to understand the science of textiles, the users, and the environment under which the textile products will be used. The word “sciences” in Textile Sciences denotes the mingling of disciplines such as chemistry, biology, microbiology, engineering, exercise and sports, sociology or consumer behavior in helping us create textile products for a variety of end uses - and herein lies the uniqueness of the Textile Sciences program.