BGU Ph.D. Student Designs Face Masks for the Hearing Impaired
BGU Ph.D. Student Designs Face Masks for the Hearing Impaired
May 6, 2020
The Jerusalem Post — Carolina Tannenbaum-Baruchi, a public health doctoral student in BGU’s Faculty of Health Sciences, designed a new face mask to assist those with hearing disabilities who often read lips as their primary form of communication.
Carolina Tannenbaum-Baruchi
With Israelis being prompted to wear masks in all public places to prevent COVID-19 transmission, Tannenbaum-Baruchi teamed up with Maayan Levin, mentor of the high school robotics team at Zinman Darca High School in Dimona, to resolve the issue.
The project is personal for Tannenbaum-Baruchi, as both of her parents are deaf. She has dedicated her doctoral research to bettering the lives of the deaf and the hearing impaired.
The mask was manufactured using a 3-D printer at Zinman Darca High School, using Tannenbaum-Baruchi’s research as a blueprint to assemble the new mask.
“Over the last three weeks, we have planned, developed and created the mask from home, with the assistance of 3-D printers. The result: the first mask of its kind,” Levin explains.
“It is reusable, washable and sterilizable, and is easy to breathe in. It is transparent in front to enable lip reading and is designed not to fog up from people’s breath. What’s more, it is comfortable and affordable.”
“Hours of conversations, messages [and sharing of] video clips have resulted in this transparent mask,” Tannenbaum-Baruchi adds joyously.
The team is currently seeking investors to enter the mask into mass production, as they continue to refine the mask blueprint.
The research was conducted under the auspices of the BGU COVID-19 Response Effort, established by University president Prof. Daniel Chamovitz.
Read more in The Jerusalem Report >>
Learn more about BGU’s COVID-19 Response Effort >>
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