Melissa Louise Mather is an Australian physicist who is Professor in Biological Sensing and Imaging at the

University of Nottingham The University of Nottingham is a public university, public research university in Nottingham, United Kingdom. It was founded as University College Nottingham in 1881, and was granted a royal charter in 1948. The University of Nottingham belongs t ...

. Her research considers the development of novel sensing techniques, including ultrasound, single molecule imaging and nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond.

Early life and education

Mather was an undergraduate student in physics at the

Queensland University of Technology Queensland University of Technology (QUT) is a public research university located in the urban coastal city of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. QUT is located on two campuses in the Brisbane area viz. Gardens Point and Kelvin Grove. The univ ...

. She remained at QUT for her doctoral research, where she used ultrasound to investigate radiation sensitive polymer gels, based at the Centre for Medical, Health and Environmental Physics. She moved to the

as a research fellow in Applied Ultrasonics, where she studied industrially relevant suspensions using ultrasound. She also studied phase transitions in

supercritical fluid A supercritical fluid (SCF) is any substance at a temperature and pressure above its critical point, where distinct liquid and gas phases do not exist, but below the pressure required to compress it into a solid. It can effuse through porous so ...

s. She then moved to the Applied Optics group as part of the

Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) is a British Research Council that provides government funding for grants to undertake research and postgraduate degrees in engineering and the physical sciences, mainly to universi ...

Grand Challenge in Regenerative Medicine.

Research and career

Mather moved to the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in 2008, where she worked developed acoustic methods to study hydrogels. The NPL is the United Kingdom's

measurement standards laboratory Metrology is the scientific study of measurement. It establishes a common understanding of units, crucial in linking human activities. Modern metrology has its roots in the French Revolution's political motivation to standardise units in Fran ...

, and Mather developed an international standard on hydrogel characterisation with ASTM International. Mather returned to the University of Nottingham in 2011, joining the Institute of Biophysics, Imaging and Optical Science (IBIOS) as an EPSRC Career Acceleration Fellow. At IBIOS, Mather worked on a liposome-based ultrasonic transducer and label-free optical microscopy for high-resolution cellular imaging. This imaging technique can help to predict stem cell differentiation, which is critical for the development of novel therapeutic strategies. She was appointed Director of the IBIOS in 2014. Mather moved to Keele University as Professor of Biomedical Imaging in 2015. She was awarded a

European Research Council The European Research Council (ERC) is a public body for funding of scientific and technological research conducted within the European Union (EU). Established by the European Commission in 2007, the ERC is composed of an independent Scientific ...

grant to study the structure of transmembrane proteins. By developing single molecule approaches Mather was able to image the proteins (

ion channel Ion channels are pore-forming membrane proteins that allow ions to pass through the channel pore. Their functions include establishing a resting membrane potential, shaping action potentials and other electrical signals by gating the flow of io ...

s) in their natural environment, which helps to understand various physiological processes. Mather was moved back to the University of Nottingham in 2018, where she studied nitrogen-vacancy centers for quantum sensing.

Selected publications

* * *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mather, Melissa Living people Queensland University of Technology alumni Australian physicists Academics of the University of Nottingham Year of birth missing (living people)