Distinguished guests and organising committee members attended the Opening Ceremony.
Prof. Shou Dahua, Conference Chair
Plenary speaker, Prof. Gregory Rutledge from MIT
Jointly organised by SFT, Research Centre of Textiles for Future Fashion (RCTFF), Research Institute for Intelligent Wearable Systems, Joint Research Centre for Fiber Innovations and Renewable Materials, and PolyU-Xingguo Technology and Innovation Research Institute (XGRI), the global event for fiber science, The Fiber Society 2025 Spring Conference, was successfully held at PolyU from 21 to 23 May 2025. The conference, themed “Future Fibers for Wellbeing, Intelligence, and Sustainability”, attracted over 300 scholars, experts, and industry representatives from around 20 countries and regions, and showcased 200 high-quality academic presentations.
Participants included scholars from world-renowned universities such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Oxford University, Cornell University, Tsinghua University, and Peking University, as well as representatives from leading international enterprises in fiber materials and the textile and apparel industries. The conference served as a platform for exploring the latest advancements and future trends in fiber science and technology.
The conference also received substantial support from the State Key Laboratory for Advanced Fiber Materials at Donghua University and the flagship journal Advanced Fiber Materials, thus underscoring the collective commitment to advancing fiber science and technology.
Prof. Dahua Shou, Conference Chair, Associate Director of RCTFF and XGRI, Limin Young Scholar in Advanced Textiles Technologies, and Associate Professor at SFT, presided over the opening ceremony and was joined by Prof. Meifang Zhu, President of The Fiber Society, a Fellow of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and a professor at Donghua University, as well as Prof. Christopher Chao, Vice President (Research and Innovation) at PolyU. They delivered welcoming speeches, and shared their vision for the future of fiber innovation and technological translation.
During the conference, six world-renowned scholars delivered plenary lectures in cutting-edge areas such as fiber materials, and intelligent technologies and their implementations in energy and safety. The plenary sessions were moderated by Prof. Xungai Wang, Chair Professor and Associate Dean of SFT; Prof. Shou, Conference Chair; and Prof. Jintu Fan, Chair Professor and Director of RCTFF.
The conference featured 11 thematic breakout sessions that covered a wide range of topics, including advanced fiber materials, intelligent wearable technologies, healthcare and biomedical applications, energy and environmental fibers, sustainable textiles, fiber composites, industrial textiles, and more. Emerging topics such as fibre-based sensors, actuators and batteries, fiber modelling and mechanics, and Fiber+: applications in AI, robotics, and the metaverse were also explored, which highlighted the diverse applications of fiber technology.
At the conference banquet, Prof. Xiangwu Zhang, Vice President of The Fiber Society and Samuel S. Walker Distinguished Professor in Textile Innovation and Associate Dean for Research of the Wilson College of Textiles at North Carolina State University, announced the winners of the poster competition. Prof. Liejin Guo, a Fellow of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a professor at Xi’an Jiaotong University, presented the awards to the winners. He was joined by Prof. Wang Zuankai, Chair Professor and Associate Vice President (Research and Innovation) of PolyU as well as other plenary and keynote speakers and session chairs for a group photo. During the banquet, Prof. Fan delivered a special presentation that reflected on the evolution of Hong Kong’s textile industry, and highlighted its innovations and historical transformation.
Prof. Shou is dedicated to research on personal thermal and moisture management, advanced textiles, intelligent wearables, and soft robotics. He has actively promoted the practical translation of these technologies. In recognition of his outstanding contributions to fiber science, he was awarded PolyU Outstanding Research Postgraduate Alumni Award 2024 and The Fiber Society's 2023 Distinguished Achievement Award, which further affirm his international academic reputation.
