Tiffany Beers’ Decade-Long Project Could Change Sneakers Forever
July 25, 2017 at 4:27 pm Bill DiFilippo 1 comment
Last year, Wired ran a story about Nike CEO Mark Parker ’77 and one of his most ambitious projects: The HyperAdapt 1.0, a self-lacing sneaker inspired by Marty McFly’s shoes in Back to the Future II. As it turns out, Parker wasn’t the only Penn Stater who played a major role in the development of these shoes.
In a recent profile, The New York Times deemed Tiffany Beers ’02 Behrend, the HyperAdapt 1.0’s lead engineer and product manager, the “mad scientist” behind the sneaker. Beers was personally selected to take on the project by famed Nike designer Tinker Hatfield in 2005. While she considered it a side project for nearly a decade, Beers’ hand was forced in 2014, when Hatfield announced to the world that the shoe would be ready by the following year. (The HyperAdapt 1.0 was eventually released in 2016.)
In addition to the nostalgia factor with these shoes, Beers hopes they serve a practical purpose for people who spend “20 or 30 minutes a day putting on and taking off their shoes” because they struggle to bend over and tie laces.
Bill DiFilippo, online editor
Entry filed under: Alumni. Tags: Mark Parker, Nike, Penn State Behrend, Tiffany Beers.
1. Joanne K. | August 1, 2017 at 7:18 am
I hope that these will be made available to people who have ALS and other similar disabilities at minimal to no cost. That would be a blessing!