Dr. Sundaresan Jayaraman is a professor in the College of Management and in the School of Polymer, Textile and Fiber Engineering. He and his research students have made significant contributions in the following areas: Enterprise Architecture and Modeling Methodologies for Information Systems; Engineering Design of Intelligent Textile Structures and Processes; and Design and Development of Knowledge Based Decision Support Systems for textiles and apparel. His group's research has led to the realization of the world's first Wearable Motherboard™, also known as the "Smart Shirt" (www.smartshirt.gatech.edu). This invention was featured in a Special Issue of LIFE Magazine titled Medical Miracles for the New Millennium (Fall 1998) as "One of the 21 Breakthroughs that Could Change Your Life in the 21st Century." In November 2001, Time magazine named the Smart Shirt one of the "Best Inventions of the Year." In July 2003, Newsweek magazine featured it as one of the "10 Inventions That Will Change the World." The first Smart Shirt is currently housed at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington. In May 2006, Jayaraman was named a first-prize winner (out of 4,200 entries) in the Modern Marvels Invent Now Challenge conducted by the History Channel, the National Inventors Hall of Fame, and Time magazine.

Jayaraman worked as a product manager at Software Arts Inc. and at Lotus Development Corporation in Cambridge, Massachusetts, before joining Georgia Tech in fall 1985. During his graduate studies, he was involved in the design and development of TK!Solver, the first equation-solving program from Software Arts.

His publications include refereed journal articles, a textbook on computer-aided problem solving published by McGraw-Hill in 1991, and seven U.S. patents with corresponding international patents. He has received over $6 million in research funding from a variety of sources including NSF, DARPA, US Air Force, Defense Logistics Agency, U.S. Department of the Navy, NIST, and industry. Jayaraman served as technical editor of information technology for ATI magazine (now Textile World), the leading textile trade publication, from 1995 to 2003. In May 2000, he was named an editor of the Journal of the Textile Institute, one of two leading refereed journals in the field of textile science and engineering, and he currently serves on the publication’s editorial board.

Jayaraman is a recipient of the 1989 Presidential Young Investigator Award from NSF for his research in the area of computer aided manufacturing and enterprise architecture. In September 1994, he was elected a fellow of the Textile Institute (UK). In April 1997, he received the Georgia Outstanding Manufacturing Researcher of the Year Award from Georgians for Manufacturing. In October 2000, Jayaraman won the Georgia Technology Research Leader Award from the State of Georgia. This award "honors an individual whose contribution to basic research extends the boundaries of a technology-related field. The contribution must be recognizable as a definite advance of knowledge or a significant technological development."

Related Links
• School of Polymer, Textile, and Fiber Engineering Bio Page