Hi, I’m Dr. Andrea Porter
I’ve wanted a PhD since I was nine. At 43, I quit my job, and my husband and I moved to College Station, Texas, (Aggieland) so I could chase that dream full time. Before we moved, my husband taught at a high-poverty school, and we spent a lot of time mentoring students.
Four young women I mentored went into the armed services and wrote to me from basic training about how badly their armor fit and how painful it was to wear.
I was shocked to hear they didn’t have better fitting armor for women, so I set out to make a difference through my PhD research.
As I dug into the existing research, I found European studies showing that fitting women with the right bra—the right size and type—made a huge difference in comfort and performance. No one is doing this research in the U.S., so it became clear God put me in place to fill this gap and help women in an overlooked struggle.
My heart is always in armor ergonomics, the science and art of fitting the equipment to the person, not making the person fit the armor. But the same discomfort and musculoskeletal pain issues are prevalent in any job where women must wear heavy torso-borne PPE or equipment. For that reason, I educate women in professions from fluoroscopy to college athletics on how to improve job performance and decrease pain by educating by finding the right size and type of bra and fitting PPE correctly.
I’m happy to help you too!