Matt Helgeson

Biography

Matt Helgeson is an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at UC Santa Barbara, where he is also a faculty member and IRG co-leader of the Materials Research Laboratory. He received his B.S. in Chemical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University in 2004, and his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering at the University of Delaware in 2009. He performed postdoctoral research at MIT before joining the faculty at UCSB. Prof. Helgeson’s research focuses on designing and processing complex fluids with well-specified nanostructure, especially those involving colloids in structured liquids. Prof. Helgeson’s research has been recognized with a number of awards, including Early Career Awards from both the National Science Foundation (2013) and Department of Energy (2015), a Hellman Foundation Faculty Fellowship (2016), and both the Victor K. LaMer Award (2011) and Unilever Award (2016) from the American Chemical Society.

Research

Prof. Helgeson is an expert in rheological and microstructural characterization of complex fluids and soft materials. He and his group develop new scattering and microscopy-based methods and image analysis tools for dynamical and mechanical characterization of small samples and materials during kinetic processes and aging. In particular, Helgeson's team has developed image correlation approaches that enable fully-automated, high-throughput microrheological measurements and analysis that are utilized in the BioPACIFIC rheological characterization facility.