“What we realized by analyzing our collected data from the individuals in the study was that the masks that we use in daily life are not very suitable for female participants,” says Canan Dagdeviren, the LG Career Development Professor of Media Arts and Sciences at MIT and the corresponding author of the study.The researchers hope that their sensor will help people to find masks that fit them better, and that designers could use it to create masks that fit a wider variety of face shapes and sizes.The study is a collaboration between Dagdeviren’s lab; Siqi Zheng, the STL Champion Professor of Urban and Real Estate Sustainability in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning; and Tolga Durak, managing director of MIT’s Environment, Health, and Safety programs.Fit quality The researchers began working on this project before mask-wearing became common during the Covid-19 pandemic.Dagdeviren’s lab, the Conformable Decoders group, specializes in developing flexible, stretchable electronics that can be worn on the skin or incorporated into textiles to detect signals from the body."