Leading the way in the smart fabrics industry

In order to create the most comprehensive, relevant agenda for conference attendees, we drew upon the expertise of several key leaders in the smart fabrics industry. We are proud to have the following individuals serving on the advisory committee for Smart Fabrics 2013:

Stacey Burr, VP Wearable Sports Electronics, ADIDAS
Stacey Burr is a leader in the field of smart fabrics. Following a career at DuPont, she founded and served as CEO of Textronics Inc, a pioneer in electro-textiles. Textronics lead the commercialization of e-textiles with the first wearable sensors for fitness and health. In late 2008 she successfully sold the Company to adidas and currently serves as Vice President, adidas Wearable Sports Electronics.

Hap Klopp, Chairman, OBSCURA DIGITAL
Among his many exploits, Hap Klopp was the founder of The North Face, where he served as President and CEO for 20 years. During that time The North Face was honored with many awards for being the best managed company in the outdoor industry, including being lauded by Business Week Magazine for providing one of the highest quality products of any company in the United States. Mr. Klopp led The North Face to its position as the largest and most successful company in its industry and one of the largest privately held companies in the San Francisco East Bay. After selling The North Face in 1990 Mr. Klopp founded HK Consulting, a company focused on creative business strategy, marketing and promotion and has augmented this work with investing and speaking engagements. Mr. Klopp is a periodic lecturer at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business, the University of Utah School of Business, and Arizona State University School of Business.

Tom Martin, Associate Professor, VIRGINIA TECH
Tom Martin is an associate professor in the Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Virginia Tech, where he is the co-director of the Virginia Tech E-textiles Lab. He received his Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University and his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Cincinnati. His current research includes electronic textiles, location-based applications, and interdisciplinary design teams for pervasive computing. Martin is vice-chair of the IEEE Technical Committee for Wearable Information Systems and has published more than 50 refereed technical articles. In 2006 he was invited to the White House to receive the NSF Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers for his research in e-textile-based wearable computing.

Dr. Tricia Wilson, President and Principal, FABRIC WORKS
Dr. Patricia Wilson received her Ph.D. in materials science and engineering from the University of Michigan and her B.S. from M.I.T. Previous to founding Fabric Works in 2005, Dr. Wilson was Principal Scientist in the Electronic & Biomedical Materials & Systems Division of Foster-Miller, Inc. Between 1998 and 2005 she was the lead technologist developing a business area in electronic textiles. Her past and present work investigates how to use common conductive textile materials and techniques to build integrated networks, antenna systems and higher-level input-output devices. Through numerous military and commercial product launches she became known as a leader in this emerging field. She has served on a number of conference boards, edited chapters and books on electronic textiles and served as a technical advisor to an exhibit entitled "Extreme Textiles: Designing for Performance" which debuted at the Smithsonian in April of 2005. Dr. Wilson formed Fabric Works in 2005 with an interest in applying her knowledge of wearable systems to commercial product design. Since founding Fabric Works, she has built a stable of clients in the medical and commercial products industries.

Kunigunde Cherenack, Research Scientist, Intelligent Textiles Project, HI&E Group, PHILIPS RESEARCH

Dr Cherenack was born in Cape Town, South Africa, where she studied Electrical Engineering (B.SC and M.Sc) at the University of Stellenbosch. Following this she carried out her Ph.D studies at Princeton University on the topic of 'Flexible Thin Film Transistors fabricated on clear plastic substrates at 300oC. Since then, Dr Cherenack has expanded her interest in flexible large area electronics towards smart textiles. As a post-doctoral researcher at the Swiss Fereal institute of Technology she has co-led the TecInTEx research project in which flexible 'smart' yarns were woven into textiles. Her current position at Philips Research involves development of novel smart textiles applications. At Philips, Dr Cherenack is also involved in the PlaceIt project in which heterogenous technologies including flexible and stretchable electronics are merged with textiles.