Advanced Functional Fabrics of America (AFFOA)
Charlotte Fairless is an experienced professional specializing in textile design and project management. Currently serving as a Technical Project Manager, Textile Technologist, Senior Product Designer, and Product Designer at Advanced Functional Fabrics of America (AFFOA) since September 2018, Charlotte has developed a robust skill set in fabric and product design. Prior experience includes a Teaching Assistant and Course Instructor at the Rhode Island School of Design, where Charlotte designed and taught a course on pattern design and screen-printing. Additional roles include a Design Intern at Natco Home Group, a Social Media Marketing Intern at Vango Art, and a Social Media Intern at FRONTLINE, PBS. Charlotte holds a Master’s Degree in Textile Design from the Rhode Island School of Design and a Bachelor’s Degree in Sociology and Anthropology, Studio Art, and French Language from Middlebury College.
Advanced Functional Fabrics of America (AFFOA)
Advanced Functional Fabrics of America (AFFOA), is a non-profit Institute headquartered in Cambridge, MA and is one of the newest members of the Manufacturing USA Institutes. AFFOA's mission is to rekindle the domestic textiles industry by leading a nationwide enterprise for advanced fiber & fabric technology development and manufacturing, enabling revolutionary system capabilities for national security and commercial markets. At the heart of this revolution is a simple premise: highly functional textile-systems necessitate sophisticated fiber-device components. To pursue this mission, AFFOA addresses the spectrum of manufacturing challenges associated with volume manufacturing of revolutionary fibers and textiles from design to end products. AFFOA facilitates the transition of these revolutionary fiber and textiles from the laboratory through pilot production, delivering the functionality of semiconductor devices and systems at fiber length, uniformity, and cost. AFFOA leads the convergence of semiconductor technology into fiber and textile production to commercialize textile products that see, hear, sense, communicate, store and convert energy, regulate temperature, monitor health, and change color while delivering the conventional qualities of textiles to benefit the commercial consumer and warfighter.