Welcome to Dr. Kate Carroll’s Research Website
Textile Products for People with Disabilities is proud to be the recipient of a 2010 Triangle Access Award in the Assistive Technology category. Thanks to the Alliance of Disability Advocates for recognizing the efforts of the students and faculty this year!
Textile products are part of our everyday lives. Textile products are worn on the body, around the house and at work, for recreation and leisure time, for mobility and transport purposes, and increasingly used in medical intervention and rehabilitation. Textiles surround us in more ways than just the clothes we wear on our body. They are on the chairs on which we sit, the carpet on which we walk, the cars in which we drive, and increasingly, textile products are used inside our bodies as part of the rapidly-growing medical textiles field. Textile products are as much a part of the lives of people with disabilities as they are for those without a disability. For people with disabilities, the need for good quality textile products can be even more pronounced.
This project will focus on assisting people in North Carolina who have a physical disability of some kind to improve the quality of their daily lives through textiles. The goals of the project support North Carolina State University’s strategic and compact plan, which seeks to prepare leaders for the state, nation and world; create educational innovation, improve community health & well-being; fuel economic development and drive innovation in the environment. The project has the following objectives: 1) engage teams of students directly with disabled individuals to develop textile products that meet their needs, and 2) develop a central web-based information portal for people with disabilities to find textile products.