TCU Fine Arts Lab Aids in New Approach to Prosthetics Research
From athlete performance and rehabilitation to wearable health technologies, protective equipment and NASA-inspired soft goods, TCU’s new Athlete Engineering & Materials Design Lab is designed to support research into the products people depend on in extreme and demanding environments.
Now, the College of Fine Arts facility is supporting an interdisciplinary team studying how materials affect heat and moisture transfer between the body and prosthetics. Fashion merchandising chair Charles Freeman, who directs the lab, brings expertise in materials and textile engineering to a collaboration spanning TCU, Texas A&M University and industry.
“No single discipline can solve a challenge like this,” Freeman said. “Bringing together expertise in prosthetics, human performance, rehabilitation, textile engineering and industry gives us an opportunity to design with the entire person in mind, not simply the product.”