{"id":6538,"date":"2014-12-23T12:14:03","date_gmt":"2014-12-23T17:14:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/materials\/?p=6538"},"modified":"2014-12-23T12:14:03","modified_gmt":"2014-12-23T17:14:03","slug":"material-man-at-under-armour","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/materials\/news\/material-man-at-under-armour\/","title":{"rendered":"Material Man at Under Armour"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Matt<\/a>Today\u2019s athletes are hungry for the latest fabrics, shoes, and accessories that will boost comfort and performance\u2014and so is Matt Trexler \u201900.<\/p>\n

Inside the Innovation Lab of Under Armour, the $2.3 billion apparel and accessory company, Trexler is among about 40 researchers who are assessing the latest technologies in everything from sensors to heart monitors to textiles.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnder Armour wants its science to be real,\u201d says Trexler, a materials scientist with a PhD from Georgia Tech, who previously worked at the U.S. Army Research Laboratory. \u201cIt\u2019s based on testing \u2026 If we say it\u2019s going to keep you warmer or cooler, we\u2019ve done quite a bit of work to make sure that\u2019s true.\u201d<\/p>\n

And while Under Armour invents plenty of its own products, it accepts and evaluates ideas from virtually anyone\u2014employees, professional athletes, manufacturing partners, and even some guy in a garage. Each year, the company sponsors an Under Armour Future Show, with a prize of $50,000 for the winning idea. If an idea has merit, it gets funneled to the lab.<\/p>\n

Though Under Armour is open about soliciting ideas, the company is super-secret about assessing, testing, and evaluating its products. The Innovation Lab, at company headquarters in Baltimore\u2019s Locust Point, is off-limits to visitors. It\u2019s down a long, white hall that looks like something out of Star Trek. It\u2019s here that engineers such as Trexler look three to five years out for innovations that will reshape their business.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy job is to look at the data and make sure it\u2019s legit,\u201d says Trexler.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared in the Winter 2015 issue of JHU Engineering Magazine<\/em>.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"template":"","class_list":["post-6538","news","type-news","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nMaterial Man at Under Armour - Department of Materials Science & Engineering<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/materials\/news\/material-man-at-under-armour\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Material Man at Under Armour - Department of Materials Science & Engineering\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Inside the Innovation Lab of Under Armour, the $2.3 billion apparel and accessory company, Matt Trexler is among about 40 researchers who are assessing the latest technologies in everything from sensors to heart monitors to textiles.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/materials\/news\/material-man-at-under-armour\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Department of Materials Science & Engineering\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Material Man at Under Armour - 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