Each time a firefighter puts their life on the line to save a member of the community, they may also put their health in jeopardy. Continuous exposure to extreme heat increases the core body temperature and causes a condition known as heat stress, which has been linked to serious medical conditions.
To help firefighters track their physiological response to heat stress, materials science and engineering Assistant Professor Kaitlyn Crawford will develop a wearable, wireless health monitor through a $1.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The award is part of the Federal Emergency Management Agency 麻豆精品 S檚 Fire Prevention and Safety grant program.
麻豆精品 S淚 am elated and honored to be selected to lead a large project that has the potential to make a significant positive impact on the fire service community, 麻豆精品 S� says Crawford, the principal investigator of the project. 麻豆精品 S淚 look forward to collaborating with the multidisciplinary team 麻豆精品 S� including MSE Assistant Professor Kausik Mukhopadhyay, who is the co-principal investigator, and the subrecipients at the Illinois Fire Service Institute and Northwestern 麻豆精品 S� and for the opportunity to interact directly with fire service members. 麻豆精品 S�
For the next three years, Crawford and her team will develop the physiological status monitor (PSM), which will be ultra-thin, flexible and comfortable for firefighters to wear. The device would be placed directly on the skin to accurately monitor a firefighter 麻豆精品 S檚 vital signs and assess their physiological response to heat stress.
Crawford says the PSM will be used to identify correlations among heat stress and skin thermal activity near the skin surface for the first time using the proposed integrated methods. Current methods for evaluating heat stress require the aid of trained personnel to administer and only account for single exposure events. The PSM would resolve those issues, and the data collected could provide insight into the link between heat stress and the serious medical issues that plague firefighters.
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The research team expects to deliver the PSM to market within the next five to seven years. Crawford says the health monitor could also be used by law enforcement, agricultural workers, astronauts, military personnel and even citizens in warm climates or those exposed to extreme weather conditions.
Mukhopadhyay says the monitor could be especially helpful to people in Florida, since the state has warmer weather compared to many other parts of the country.
麻豆精品 S淚deally, Floridians could wear the tool in future to monitor their heat stress exposure during daily outdoor activities 麻豆精品 S� especially in the summer months, 麻豆精品 S� he says.
Crawford joined UCF in 2017 as an assistant professor of materials science and engineering and a member of the Biionix faculty cluster. She also has courtesy appointments in the Department of Chemistry and the NanoScience Technology Center. Crawford 麻豆精品 S檚 research focuses on identifying new materials for sensing applications that are environmentally sustainable. She completed her doctorate in chemistry from the University of Maryland, College Park in 2015 and received a master 麻豆精品 S檚 in chemistry from North Carolina State University in 2011. She has received more than 10 awards related to research and teaching.
Mukhopadhyay is an assistant professor of materials science and engineering, and he directs the Hybrid Materials and Surfaces Laboratory, where his team utilizes fundamentals of materials, chemistry, physics, medicine and engineering to develop solutions for a multitude of exciting research problems related to surfaces, coatings, electrochemistry, corrosion, catalysis and wound healing solutions for acute trauma. Mukhopadhyay has a bachelor 麻豆精品 S檚 degree and a master 麻豆精品 S檚 degree in chemistry from Calcutta University, and he received his doctorate in chemistry from the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research 麻豆精品 S� National Chemical Laboratory.
