The School of Textile and Fiber Engineering (TFE)

The School of Textile and Fiber Engineering's (TFE's) vision at Georgia Tech is to become international quality leader in education, research and outreach in the science, engineering, and management of fibers and textile materials and their manufacturing technologies.

The School's impact on the Fiber-Textile-Fabricated Products (FTFP) Industry Complex (the one it mainly serves) is best reflected in the unit's mission: to assist the U. S. FTFP Complex to compete effectively and maintain leadership in the global marketplace by providing:

* World-class graduates at the B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. levels;
* A comprehensive research infrastructure;
* Outreach programs of the highest quality.

The School's graduates provide the future leadership for the FTFP Complex in GA and the Southeast, with TFE constituting the second largest technical textile school in the nation (207 total students, 155 undergraduates and 52 graduates (28 MS, 24 Ph.D.) in Fall Qtr./1998). The average SAT score of TFE's FY98 Freshman class was 1308, three points higher than Tech's overall Freshman average.

FTFP graduates are highly sought by industry, and progression through the ranks is rapid and continuous throughout the graduates' careers. Being imbedded for the past century in what is now the nation's fourth-ranked College of Engineering (as determined by U. S. News & World Report) helps keep the quality of TFE's student recruits at the leading edge. In research, TFE is the recognized base for long-range, fundamental research for the FTFP Complex in the State. Leading such major research efforts as the Federal National Textile Center (NTC, for the past seven years) and the State Consortium on Competitiveness for the Apparel, Carpet and Textile Industries (CCACTI, for the past five years), the TFE faculty has also led the Tech College of Engineering in average external research support per faculty member each of the past three years.

Major thrusts in such diverse areas as polymer synthesis and characterization, automated inspection and yarn creeling, enterprise architecture, sustate liners, inkjet printing, environmentally-friendly processes and processing/structure/property relationships are underway in the School.

The TFE faculty are interdisciplinary by design, incorporating five base-trained chemists, two scientists and eight engineers within the 15 tenure-track positions of the unit. In addition, a number of Research Scientists, Post-Doctoral Associates and Research Associates support the tenure-track faculty. TFE possesses an impressive array of analytical, testing, and processing equipment in its myriad of research laboratories, providing the facilities and infrastructure to support its world-class scientific and engineering investigations.

Outreach programs in TFE span the gamut of industry short courses, workshops, consultantships and true research partnerships with the FTFP Complex companies. Topics such as Fiber Recycling, Structure Imaging and Textile Fundamentals are included in the industry offerings, and all of the faculty are engaged in a myriad of consulting activities (both hired and voluntary) within the Complex.

As the primary supplier of university graduates, fundamental research and quality outreach programs to this mammoth industry, TFE plays a vital role for Tech in insuring the future of the Complex in GA, and by extension, the health and viability of a major contributor to the State's economy and the standard of living of its citizens