Illinois Students Making Masks

Joey Peters, a PhD candidate in Kinesiology and Community Health, and Gies College of Business alumna Arielle Rausin received a $10,000 grant from the Craig H. Neilsen Foundation to make protective masks for people with spinal cord injuries (SCI). The two met when Joey, a member of Dr. Laura Rice’s Disability Participation and Quality of Life Research Lab, became the graduate assistant for the wheelchair track team. Arielle, who graduated in 2016, was a member of the team.

In an interview with Smile Politely, Champaign-Urbana’s online culture magazine, Arielle said that people with higher level spinal cord injuries have reduced chest and abdominal function that can make it difficult for them to clear airway secretions. This could put them at a higher risk for respiratory complications from COVID-19. She added, “People with spinal cord injuries have much higher rates of unemployment than non-disabled people so they may have fewer resources to purchase a mask of their own.”

Using a design that’s been tested and approved for community use by the National Institutes of Health, Joey and Arielle are making masks using 3D printers located in the University of Illinois Division of Disability Resources and Educational Services (DRES) and Ingenium Manufacturing, a company Arielle founded in 2016 to produce affordable 3D-printed wheelchair racing gloves.

The masks are being distributed free of charge and will first go to students who are registered with DRES. Arielle and Joey then plan to send masks to adaptive youth sports organizations such as the Chicago-based Great Lakes Adaptive Sports Association. They also hope to send them to individuals with SCI in Illinois and beyond, depending on the number they are able to produce.