Institute for Textile Technology at RWTH Aachen University
ITA PhD student Roxana Ley receives Wilhelm Lorch Award in the field of technology
Combining sustainability and individual personal protective equipment – this is what ITA PhD student Roxana Ley achieved with her demonstrator surgical goggles. In her master’s thesis at the Institute of Textile Technology (ITA) at RWTH Aachen University, she presented a method that combines Tailor Fiber Placement (TFP) with fused deposition modeling 3D printing. At the same time, she developed a system that individually adapts personal protective equipment (PPE) and demonstrated this with a pair of surgical goggles. The combination of both processes enables fast and flexible customization in terms of material and shape.
Roxana Ley was awarded the Wilhelm Lorch Prize 2025 in the field of technology for this development on May 15. The prize was awarded on the occasion of the Textile Industry Forum at the Palmengarten in Frankfurt am Main.
The Wilhelm Lorch Foundation has been supporting talented young professionals for 37 years and awarded ten sponsorship prizes of €5,000 each to a total of twelve young professionals in 2025 (two award-winning works were produced by teams of two).
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