About Cindy Cordoba

Cindy Cordoba Arroyo is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Apparel Merchandising and Management (AMM) at Cal Poly Pomona. She earned a Ph.D. in Fiber Science and Apparel Design from Cornell University. Cindy is inspired by communities’ capacity to build resilience in diverse ecosystems. She seeks to highlight these sustainable efforts through her research. Dr. Cordoba earned an M.Sc. in Textiles, Apparel, and Merchandising at Louisiana State University in 2018. Her research interests focus on the circular economy, recycling, and upcycling of post-consumer textile waste led by historically marginalized communities supported by computer-aided design technology tools (CAD). The common thread among her environmental and apparel studies is her interest in recovering waste as raw material for new value chains and sustainable development 

            She has won a number of fellowship awards including the Frances Hesselbein Institute of the University of Pittsburgh for academic and leadership record, the Martin Luther King Jr. Fellowship, and the VERGE Emerging Leader in Sustainability.

             Cindy’s research focuses on post-consumer textile waste management from airline uniforms. Workwear have limited diversion opportunities from the landfill because they are branded and non-ready to wear apparel, therefore, they cannot be donated through charity and textile banks. Her research seeks to offer higher material recovery rate for unused and discarded post-consumer airline uniforms through upcycling them into new uniforms.