{"id":1132,"date":"2015-09-14T13:30:26","date_gmt":"2015-09-14T12:30:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mub.eps.manchester.ac.uk\/uommaterialsblog\/?p=1132"},"modified":"2018-05-22T16:39:46","modified_gmt":"2018-05-22T15:39:46","slug":"mondaymaterials-episode-8-dr-delia-vazquez","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mub.eps.manchester.ac.uk\/uommaterialsblog\/mondaymaterials-episode-8-dr-delia-vazquez\/","title":{"rendered":"#MondayMaterials Episode 8 – Dr Delia Vazquez"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Delia in a School of Materials teaching facility<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It’s #MondayMaterials<\/a> time again, and today we’re chatting with Dr Delia Vazquez.<\/p>\n

If you’re particularly eagle-eyed and have the memory of an elephant, you might remember Delia’s name from one of our very earliest episodes. She is the PhD supervisor of Sophie Miell<\/a>, our second interviewee. What made Delia’s interview all the more exciting for us was the fact that she was the first person to contact us and ask to be included in the series! Glad to see people like what we’re doing.<\/p>\n

Once we met Delia, we were glad she’d got in touch. Not only was she a fascinating person to speak to, but we’re now in discussions over some exciting blog ideas with her, focusing on some of her alumni and the extremely impressive work they do today.\u00a0Watch this space – but in the meantime, read the interview below:<\/p>\n

Please describe your research, for the layman, in ten sentences or less?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

My research is all about E-commerce<\/a> in fashion online. I research customers\u2019 fashion consumer behaviour on online devices, increasingly on iPads. We\u2019re looking at WeChat<\/a>, which is a Chinese social media application which is growing exponentially.<\/p>\n

So, anything to do with E-commerce, anything to do with mobile commerce<\/a>, social commerce<\/a>. I also look at anything, any technological aspect that we use, that retailers use, on their website.<\/p>\n

For example, I have a PhD student who is looking at virtual fit. One of the big problems for profitability in fashion retail is the amount of returns from retailers and consumers because products don\u2019t fit, they\u2019re too loose, they\u2019re too long. So anything retailers can do to make that fit more applicable to the consumer will save them hundreds of millions of pounds \u2013 I think \u00a36 billion is the figure worldwide wasted on returns. So one of my PhD students is looking at whether we can use body scanning equipment to develop a personalised avatar and use that for fit.<\/p>\n

I have another student who\u2019s looking at EEG machines and monitoring consumers\u2019 reactions when they shop for fashion online through they\u2019re mobile device!<\/p>\n

How can your research benefit the general public?<\/strong><\/h2>\n