Suzanne Loker, an innovator in apparel education and champion for sustainability and corporate responsibility, died April 12 at age 77, from cancer.

Loker, a professor emerita in fiber science and apparel design in the College of Human Ecology (CHE), was awarded Faculty Fellow status by the International Textile and Apparel Association in 2007. She achieved emerita status at Cornell in 2008, 10 years after joining CHE.

Credit: Provided

She embraced cutting-edge technology, both in her research and in her teaching. She co-led a major research project using body-scan technology with Susan Ashdown, professor emerita of human centered design (CHE), to improve garment fit and as a tool to facilitate mass customization using computer aided design and manufacturing tools. Loker became a mentor to Ashdown and together they received funding from the National Textile Center to conduct their research, which resulted in multiple publications. They also led the effort to develop the Ph.D. in Apparel Design program in CHE.

“All of this work was done with a good deal of care for both students and colleagues and an amazing balance: an understanding of the importance of the work we did for our field, yet with a level of practicality, understanding and humor that made the most challenging activities feel conceivable,” Ashdown said. “Suzanne was a positive spirit whose engagement made a permanent impact on all who were privileged to work with her.”

She also focused on social and corporate responsibility. Loker co-wrote wrote “Social Responsibility in the Global Apparel Industry” (2009) and created a class on social responsibility and ethics before it was a hot topic in fashion.

Loker was at the forefront of distance education and online learning, and an early adopter of technology as a teaching tool. In the early 2000s, she converted her classes to be taught online, and she received a U.S. Department of Agriculture Higher Education Challenge Grant to work with colleagues at two other universities to develop graduate courses offered online.

Her commitment to outreach was recognized nationally by academics and those in the industry. She led the Apparel Industry Outreach program, an arm of Cornell Cooperative Extension, which supported the apparel industry in New York State, especially in terms of adopting computer-aided design, body scanning, mass customized production and other technologies through publications, gatherings and networks. With Fran Kozen, who was an extension associate at the time and is now a senior lecturer in Human Centered Design, they developed digital design entrepreneurship resources for small businesses and as a class, which offered students the opportunity to interact with industry practitioners.

Loker received her Ph.D. in educational psychology from Kansas State University and her master’s degree in clothing and textiles from Syracuse University. She went on to hold faculty positions at the University of Idaho, University of Vermont, University of Wisconsin, Madison, and Kansas State. Loker joined Cornell in 1998 and was the J. Thomas Clark Professor of Entrepreneurship and Personal Enterprise from 2000-2005.

In addition to her career at Cornell, Loker was known as an athlete, a golfer and an adventurer who loved snowshoeing, skiing and biking.

“Suzanne was a creative and forward-thinking scholar who understood the application of her research to the apparel industry and made a difference in that world,” said Ann Lemley, professor emerita of fiber science and apparel design and former department chair of Fiber Science and Apparel Design at CHE. “She was also able to take her broad knowledge to the classroom and to her work with graduate students. Suzanne was a wonderful colleague in the department, and we join her family in mourning her loss.”

Loker was a Ph.D. adviser and a tenure mentor to Tasha Lewis, Ph.D. ’09, now the Nina Mae Mattus Associate Clinical Professor in Fashion & Retail Studies at The Ohio State University. Lewis took Loker’s first online course in sustainability, and she still teaches from a signed copy of Loker’s book.

“I’ll treasure it now,” she said. “She was a superstar in our field and a great human, and I’m going to miss that I can’t call and ask her for advice.”

Robin Roger is the assistant dean for communications in the College of Human Ecology.