About Our Research
Our research centres on the physical and physiological interface between humans and textiles, and the complex issues that arise when textiles are worn against the human body. We seek to advance understanding of how textiles perform when being worn and used by people. As human ecologists, our research is not restricted to the laboratory. It often involves carrying out wear trials in field conditions in order to examine the interactions between human subjects and their clothing in real life conditions. Our current and future research is focused on three main areas related to textiles: (i) odour within textiles; (ii) performance of textiles relating to thermophysiological aspects of clothing comfort and protection; and (iii) sustainability of textiles
Group News
November 2023
- Rachel attended the ITAA conference this month in Baltimore, USA. She presented research carried out by graduate students: Sabrina Marsha, "Wash it, or wear it? Perceptions of odour control technologies on activewear and their influence on the likelihood to launder," and Changrui He, "From Waste to Wardrobe: Exploring Textile Upcycling from a Local Perspective."
- It is great to have two manuscripts from the New Zealand and Australia collaboration with Dr. Lisa McNeill (University of Otago) and Dr. Balkrushna Potdar (University of Tasmania) accepted for publication! Check them out: "Prioritising sustainable garment choice among high-volume fashion consumers" in the Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management, and "An investigation into the clothing repair behaviour of fashion-sensitive consumers" in the International Journal of Fashion Design, Technology and Education.
September 2023
- Wing Sem Mak attended the AATCC Textile Discovery Summit in Greenville, South Carolina, this month, where she presented a poster on her research on the performance of pre-consumer recycled wool. Great work Wing Sem!
- Welcome to new graduate students, Mansi Sharma and Utkarsh Sharma. It's great to have you on board!
July 2023
- We are so excited to have launched the Line Dry July challenge!!
- Anil Kumar and Rachel McQueen attended and presented at the SCORAI-ERSCP-WUR Conference at Wageningen University Campus in the Netherlands. It was so great to participate in this event and learn more about different aspects of sustainable consumption and production from researchers around the world.
- Rachel weighed in on the issue of how long you should go before washing your jeans on Real Simple's podcast "Minor Issues, Major Opinions." It was a fun episode to be a part of and an even more fun podcast to listen to. Thanks to Leslie for having me on the episode! Here's the link to the podcast.
June 2023
- René Arrendondo Campos and Anil Kumar are graduating with their MScs in Textiles and Clothing at the Spring Convocation. Congratulations to you both! Read about their research here.
April 2023
- Congratulations to Chloe for receiving a Masters SSHRC Canada Graduate Scholarship. Well done Chloe!
February 2023
- Great to see Lauren's thesis research published in Sustainability "Integrating product stewardship into the clothing and textile industry: Perspectives of New Zealand Stakeholders".
January 2023
- It's really great to welcome Chloe Simmons into the research group. Chloe is doing her MA with a focus on craft and sustainability and is co-supervised by my colleague Dr. Arlene Oak.
November 2022
- It was super cool to be part of Our Edmonton's exposé on textiles this month. It was great to meet Adrienne Lamb and show her around the Department of Human Ecology. Thanks to all the students and staff who helped out during the filming, being happy to be photographed or filmed to help highlight the research and textile spaces within the department. Here's the web article associated with the visit.
October 2022
- We held the first Human Ecology Clothing Repair Café on October 15 to coincide with International Repair Day. It was a great success, and so much fun! Thanks to all the fabulous volunteers who signed up to help and the funding through the Campus Sustainability Grant to make this happen! Thanks also to Janna for all your hard work in getting the first up and running and for creating our Instagram posts.
- Thanks to Bev Betkowski for writing a great article on our recently published clothing repair research for the Folio.
September 2022
- Welcome to three new graduate students: Wing Sem Mak, Syu-Hua Fang and Changrui He.
- Great to see our article "The role of resources in repair practice: Engagement with self, paid and unpaid clothing repair by young consumers" published online first in the Textile Research Journal.
August 2022
- Another article on clothing repair has been published. Check out "Unpicking the gender gap: Examining socio-demographic factors and repair resources in clothing repair practice" in the open-access journal Recycling.
May 2022
- Our article related to UofA students and their clothing repair behaviours has been published in the International Journal of Fashion Design, Technology & Education. Email us at textile@ualberta.ca if you're interested in a free e-print of the article.
