Matthew Tirrell (University of Chicago)

Updated on:

Matthew Tirrell - Dean of the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering - received the title of Doctor Honoris Causa on the 17th June 2022.

Photo : Matthew Tirrell © University of Chicago
Matthew Tirrell © University of Chicago

Born in 1950, Matthew Tirrell received his Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in polymer science and engineering in 1977. He then became an assistant professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at the University of Minnesota. He joined the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1999 as Dean of the College of Engineering, before moving to the University of California, Berkeley as Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and Chemical and Scientific Engineering in 2009.

In 2011, Matthew Tirrell became the Founding Pritzker Director and Dean of the Institute for Molecular Engineering (IME), with the mission of building the first engineering programme at the University of Chicago. Under his leadership, the IME became a leading research institute. In September 2015, he was appointed deputy laboratory director for science at Argonne National Laboratory, a position he left in April 2018. In 2019, the IME became the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering and Matthew Tirrell was named Dean and Robert A. Millikan Distinguished Service Professor.

Research, collaboration, distinctions

Matthew Tirrell is a pioneer researcher in the fields of biomolecular engineering and nanotechnology. He specialises in manipulating and measuring the surface properties of polymers, materials consisting of long flexible chains of molecules. His team has opened new perspectives in polymer surface phenomena, such as adhesion, friction and biocompatibility. He has received worldwide recognition in his field.

 

Professor Tirrell has been cooperating with many French institutes, and in particular with the University of Bordeaux for more than ten years. In 2011, he was appointed president of the international scientific council of the LabEx AMADEus and of the EquipEx ELORPrintTec.

Professor Tirrell’s many awards include the American Physical Society’s Polymer Physics Award, election to the US National Academy of Engineering, to the US National Academy of Science and to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. He was named Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Palmes Académiques in 2009 "for services rendered to French culture".

The DHC for Prof. Tirrell was proposed by Georges Hadziioannou, professor, Laboratory of Organic Polymer Chemistry (LCPO), University of Bordeaux.