Professor Lilian Hsiao, in the NC State Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, is leading a research program centered around intelligent soft materials. A major focus is to address one of the grand challenges in the National Academy of Engineering: to enhance virtual reality through haptic materials that can alter the sense of touch to the user. Her work addresses NC State’s strategic research area in “Enriching the Human Experience” as well as in “Secure and Intelligent Systems”. KIETS funds support Dr. Hsiao’s graduate students working towards wearable energy harvesters using triboelectric effects generated by polymeric substrates.
In 2025, Dr. Hsiao’s group published a paper that describes results indicating that humans are willing to wear comfortable devices over long periods of time, made possible by accurate engineering of additive chemistry and contact physics developed in this project., Dr. Hsiao also visited the Air Force Research Laboratory and collaborated with one of the resident scientists on x-ray characterization of these materials. These could potentially lead to future innovations that would be deployed on materials of importance to the nation’s defense and security applications. Dr. Hsiao’s team has also been developing triboelectric elastomer sensors that can be embedded in running shoes to generate power during compression cycles, and Dr. Hsiao has begun initial discussions with a potential industry collaborator interested in the technology.
Dr. Hsiao’s research complements the efforts of a startup company called X-MED Hydrogels, which will commercialize hydrogel fibers that are tailored for stable and long-duration release of drug cocktails to burn wounds. The company was co-founded by Dr. Hsiao in collaboration with the Technology Entrepreneurship and Commercialization (TEC) program. KIETS support leverages a $1.7 million retention package from the Provost, Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, and the College of Engineering. Dr. Hsiao was awarded the Society of Rheology Metzner Award for distinguished early career research in the field of rheology and was also named a NC State University Faculty Scholar in 2025.