Felecia Davis

Felecia Davis serves as Associate Professor of Architecture at The Pennsylvania State University's Stuckeman School, where her interdisciplinary research bridges architecture, textiles, engineering, and social equity. Her work reimagines textile applications in daily life and built environments through computational innovation, with recent recognition including the Cooper Hewitt National Design Award and Civitella Ranieri Fellowship.

Davis pioneers the integration of computational textiles and soft architecture to create emotionally responsive environments. Her research explores how e-textiles can express feelings through systems like FELT (emotional textile expression) and capacitive-sensing touch curtains, merging affective computing with architectural design. This work addresses critical gaps in equitable community design by transforming passive structures into interactive, socially conscious spaces that respond to human presence and emotional states.

Analysis of her publications reveals consistent focus on human-centered textile interfaces, with evolving sophistication from foundational work on touch communication (2012) to emotion-driven systems (2019). Her research trajectory demonstrates increasing integration of social equity frameworks within computational material science, positioning textiles as active mediators between technology and human experience in architectural contexts.

Davis has received significant recognition including:

• Cooper Hewitt National Design Award (2022)
• Civitella Ranieri/WJOR Architecture Fellowship (2023)
• Emerging Voices Award (2022)
• SOM Foundation Research Prize (2022, team award)
• International innovative research award (2022)

As director of Penn State's Computational Textiles Lab, Davis leads interdisciplinary teams developing prototypes like wool-based temporary libraries and fungi-integrated architectural installations. Her lab's work featured in Venice Biennale and Los Angeles exhibitions demonstrates practical applications of research, while ongoing projects explore Black hair traditions as architectural inspiration and ADA-compliant built environments. Recent collaborations with Penn State's College of Medicine highlight expanding biomedical applications of her textile computing research.