About the Seminar:

The Golder Research Team utilizes fundamental principles of molecular structure to control synthetic polymer function. Many of society’s greatest advancements spanning health, sanitation, construction, electronics, and transportation have been enabled by the invention and application of plastics. Simultaneously, these materials have created significant concerns about global sustainability, climate impact, and environmental pollution. My laboratory aims to discover new materials and methods that unveil unexpected phenomena on the macroscopic scale; this overarching strategy will produce next-generation designer plastics and reform how commodity plastics are utilized. In this talk, the team’s efforts towards these common goals will be outlined in the context of recent work centered on: (1) synthetic transformations fueled by initiator and methodology development, and (2) molecular design of new soft materials.

About the Speaker:

Matt received his BS in Chemistry from the University of Rochester (NY) in 2010 where he conducted organometallic catalysis research with Prof. Patrick Holland. He was also DAAD RISE Scholar at HU Berlin with Prof. Stefan Hecht during his time as an undergraduate. Following graduation, he moved back to his home city of Boston, MA where he began graduate school in the lab of Prof. Ramesh Jasti at Boston University. He relocated with the lab to the University of Oregon in 2014, where he ultimately earned his PhD in Chemistry in 2015. His work on carbon nanohoop synthesis was recognized by a 2016 IUPAC-Solvay International Award for Young Chemists. Matt was then an NIH NRSA Postdoctoral Fellow in Prof. Jeremiah Johnson’s laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he worked on the synthesis of polymer drug delivery agents and unimolecular macromolecules. He began his independent career in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Washington in 2019. His group works at the interface of physical organic chemistry and polymer science to explore novel structural motifs to solve broad challenges centered on sustainability, biomedicine, and energy. He is the recipient of a Thieme Chemistry Journal Award, NSF CAREER Award, & Army Research Office Young Investigator Program Award, and is a 2023 ACS Division of Organic Chemistry Young Investigator.