TEXTILES.ORG
A Texas Tech University fabric researcher will receive an honorary fellowship from the world’s largest textile and fiber association. Seshadri Ramkumar, manager of the Nonwovens and Advanced Materials Laboratory at The Institute of Environmental and Human Health (TIEHH), will be given the honorary fellowship in January 2011 by The Textile Association (India), with members topping 22,000.
The award will be given this January during the 66th annual conference of the society in Bangalore, India, said P.R. Roy, director of Fibre2Fashion and president emeritus of The Textile Association (India). Since 1946, 57 people have been honored with the fellowship. The association was founded in 1939.
“Our association is pleased to honor Dr. Ramkumar with the highest research award for his research accomplishments in nonwovens and technical textiles and also his collaborative efforts with India in the textiles field,” said Roy, also an honorary fellow of the association.
Ramkumar specializes in technical textiles, and is best known for creating Fibertect®, a decontamination technology developed in 2005. With his team at TIEHH, Ramkumar leveraged the absorbent capabilities of cotton to create the Fibertect wipe, which can absorb and neutralize gases and liquids that might be used in chemical warfare. The process has received a patent and has been validated for use as a low-cost decontamination wipe for the U.S. military. The wipe’s qualities were also re-engineered to create a better absorbent material to pick up the “chocolate mousse” oil slicks inundating Gulf Coast beaches following the Deepwater Horizon disaster.
“I offer hearty congratulations to Dr. Ramkumar for this accomplishment,” said Provost Bob Smith. “This is outstanding news, and a very high-level honor and recognition for him, TIEHH and Texas Tech. It also serves as recognition of the high-caliber research we do at Texas Tech that will usher us to Tier One status.”