Dr. Amar Paul Singh Sawhney

In his professional career of about 40 years, Dr. Sawhney has been involved in almost all aspects of textile processing technologies, including product development. Before joining the USDA in 1985, Dr. Sawhney served as a Senior Research Scientist and the resident textile expert for Rockwell International Corporation (a yarn and weaving machinery manufacturing conglomerate in North and South Carolinas).

Prior to that, he was a research associate at Texas Tech University. While in India, he served as an Assistant Weaving Superintendent in Lakshmi Vishnu Mills, Sholapur, and as a Weaving Assistant in Arvind and Calico mills, both in Ahmedabad. Dr. Sawhney also has international acclaim on his credit for developing a number of new and improved core spinning systems, bicomponent yarns and the fabrics made thereof, and test methods.

Recently, he has pioneered the development of size-free weaving and has successfully demonstrated for the first time the “mechanical feasibility” of weaving more than 100 meters of a light-weight cotton fabric on a modern high-speed weaving machine without the centuries-old, traditional warp sizing and, more importantly, with no yarn breakage or failure. This indeed is a significant research milestone in textile processing.

At present, Dr. Sawhney is leading the cotton nonwovens research program at the USDA-ARS-SRRC in New Orleans. He has published 220+ papers, including 12 U.S. and foreign patents. He is a recipient of numerous coveted awards and recognitions from the USDA, the various institutions he has served, and the academic institutions he has attended. You can contact him on: ap.singh@ars.usda.gov