The Future of Wearable Tech

Cindy Hsin-Liu Kao was a doctoral student in the early 2010s when smartwatches were all the rage. As a researcher of wearable tech, she tried several. “They were doing all this amazing stuff – it’s an amazing piece of engineering, no question,” she says. Now an assistant professor of design and environmental analysis in the College of Human Ecology, Kao uses textile techniques from knitting and weaving to make on-skin devices that could influence arenas from healthcare to everyday interactions – and serve as high-tech forms of expression.