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Gözde Göncü-Berk, associate professor of design, has been named the inaugural Maria Manetti Shrem Endowed Chair in Design, Fashion and Textiles and the founding director of the Maria Manetti Shrem Institute for Sustainable Design, Fashion and Textiles at the University of California, Davis. Her work focuses on development of soft wearable systems that sense, respond and adapt to the body to enhance health, well-being and performance.

Her appointment was announced Thursday, Nov. 13 during a ribbon-cutting ceremony celebrating the launch of the institute, housed in the Department of Design, in the College of Letters and Science at UC Davis.

“First and foremost, I want to express my deepest gratitude to Maria Manetti Shrem for her extraordinary generosity, vision and belief in the power of design to shape a better future,” Göncü-Berk said. “This institute exists because of her faith that creativity, science and compassion can coexist and lead positive change.”

Göncü-Berk holds a Ph.D. in design from the University of Minnesota, a master’s degree in clothing and textiles design from Mimar Sinan University of Fine Arts in Istanbul, Türkiye and a bachelor’s degree in industrial design from Istanbul Technical University. She has been at UC Davis since 2018.

She has received numerous awards for her work including the Award of Excellence from the Advanced Textile Association in 2022 and 2024.  Just last month, she received the 2025 Jacquelyn Anderson Wellness Innovation Award, presented by the UC Davis Health Office of Wellness Education, which honors individuals who demonstrate exceptional innovation in research, education or advocacy around the importance and impact of wellness.  

As founder and director of the Wearlab at UC Davis, Göncü-Berk leads interdisciplinary research at the intersection of design, textiles and technology. “At the WearLab, our research is driven by a central question: How can clothing, textiles, new materials and digital fabrication technologies enhance the quality of our lives through design?” Göncü-Berk said. “Our work focuses on electronic textiles, also known as e-textiles, where electronic functionality is directly integrated into fabric structures and smart clothing, a type of wearable technology that is soft and blends seamlessly into what we already wear every day.”