Mark William Matsen

Mark Matsen holds a joint position as a Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering and the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Waterloo. He is also a member of the Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology.

His research focuses on theory and simulations involving the self-assembly of nanostructured polymers, such as block copolymers, liquid-crystalline polymers, polyelectrolytes and polymeric brushes. While he continues to build on his reputation for self-consistent field theory (SCFT), Professor Matsen is currently developing the next generation of theoretical techniques, specifically field-theoretic simulations (FTS).

Professor Matsen has published over 100 papers in refereed journals, generating more than 10,000 citations and an h-index of 47. He is also an editor for Physical Review Letters and the European Physical Journal E: Soft Matter. His research record has earned him an international reputation, which was acknowledged by the American Physical Society in 2008 when he was made a fellow for his “seminal contributions to the development and implementation of the self-consistent field theory for block-copolymer materials and polymeric brushes.”

• Molecular Self-assembly In Polymetric Systems
• Block Copolymer Combinations
• Polymeric Brushes
• Bulk Equilibrium Behaviour
• Thin Film Behaviour
• Grain Boundaries
• Interfacial Behaviour
• Phase Transitions

• 1992, Doctorate, Physics, University of Guelph
• 1987, Bachelor's, Mathematical Physics, Simon Fraser

• NE 115 - Probability and Statistics
  • Taught in 2014
• CHE 220 - Process Data Analysis
  • Taught in 2015, 2016, 2017
• CHE 620 - Applied Engineering Mathematics
  • Taught in 2018

• Spencer, Russell KW and Matsen, Mark W, Confinement effects on the miscibility of block copolymer blends, The European Physical Journal E, 39(4), 2016, 1 - 8
• Dalsin, Samuel J and Rions-Maehren, Thomas G and Beam, Marissa D and Bates, Frank S and Hillmyer, Marc A and Matsen, Mark W, Bottlebrush Block Polymers: Quantitative Theory and Experiments, ACS nano, 9(12), 2015, 12233 - 12245
• Vorselaars, Bart and Stasiak, Pawel and Matsen, Mark W, Field-theoretic simulation of block copolymers at experimentally relevant molecular weights, Macromolecules, 48(24), 2015, 9071 - 9080
• Spencer, Russell KW and Matsen, Mark W, Boundary Tension Between Coexisting Phases of a Block Copolymer Blend, Macromolecules, 48(8), 2015, 2840 - 2848
• Spencer, Russell and Matsen, Mark, Interfaces between immiscible large and small block copolymers, Bulletin of the American Physical Society, 60, 2015