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Matthew D. Shoulders, the Class of 1942 Professor of Chemistry, a MacVicar Faculty Fellow, and an associate member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, has been appointed chair of the MIT Department of Chemistry, starting Jan. 16, 2026.
“Matt has made ground-breaking contributions to the chemistry research community through his work on proteostasis mechanisms and his creation of advanced techniques to tackle challenges in biomedicine and agriculture,” states Nergis Mavalvala, dean of the MIT School of Science and the Curtis and Kathleen Marble Professor of Astrophysics. “He is also a devoted educator, cherished by both undergraduates and graduates. I am confident the department will thrive under his leadership as we reaffirm our commitment to premier research and education despite financial challenges.”
Shoulders takes over from Troy Van Voorhis, the Robert T. Haslam and Bradley Dewey Professor of Chemistry, who has led the department since October 2019.
“I am immensely thankful to Troy for his guidance over the past six years, fostering a remarkable community within our department. We encounter challenges, but many thrilling opportunities lie ahead for the department in the coming years,” remarks Shoulders. “One certainty remains: Innovations in chemistry are essential for addressing urgent global issues. Through our research and the scientists we cultivate, our department plays a significant role in shaping the future.”
Shoulders investigates how cells fold proteins and develops and employs innovative protein engineering techniques to address challenges in biotechnology. His research spans chemistry and biochemistry, including proteostasis, extracellular matrix biology, virology, evolution, and synthetic biology, yielding crucial insights into how cells create healthy tissues and how proteins evolve, while also influencing methodologies in disease treatment and biotechnology advancement.
“Matt is an exceptional researcher whose work addresses fundamental inquiries about how cellular machinery governs the synthesis and folding of proteins. His findings on how this machinery deteriorates due to mutations or stress significantly impact our understanding and treatment of human diseases,” explains Van Voorhis.
In a segment of Matt’s ongoing research initiative, he examines how protein folding systems in cells—termed chaperones—affect the evolution of their clients. Among other revelations, his lab has demonstrated that viral pathogens exploit human chaperones to facilitate their rapid evolution and evade host immunity. In related recent investigations, they have uncovered that these same chaperones can support access to mutations that drive malignancy in tumors. Beyond fundamental insights into evolutionary biology, these discoveries hold promise for developing new therapeutic strategies targeting cancer and viral infections.
“Matt’s capacity to appreciate both intricate details and the larger perspective makes him an outstanding researcher and a natural leader for the department,” asserts Timothy Swager, the John D. MacArthur Professor of Chemistry. “MIT Chemistry stands to gain from his commitment to understanding and addressing both the components and the entirety.”
Shoulders also heads a food security initiative through the Abdul Latif Jameel Water and Food Systems Lab (J-WAFS). Together with MIT Research Scientist Robbie Wilson, he organized an interdisciplinary team at MIT to enhance agricultural resilience to climate change by refining one of the least efficient aspects of photosynthesis, the carbon dioxide-fixing plant enzyme RuBisCO. J-WAFS funded this ambitious, high-stakes MIT Grand Challenge project in 2023, receiving additional backing from federal research entities and the Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment.
“Our collaborative team of biochemists, synthetic biologists, computational biologists, and chemists is intricately linked with plant biologists, creating a strong feedback loop for enzyme engineering,” Shoulders explains. “Together, this team is making a concerted effort using cutting-edge techniques to modify crop RuBisCO, aiming to achieve substantial improvements in securing a stable crop supply, ideally accompanied by advancements in both food and water security.”
Aside from his research contributions, Shoulders has taught multiple courses for Course V, including 5.54 (Advances in Chemical Biology) and 5.111 (Principles of Chemical Science), along with several other essential chemistry classes. His contributions to a 5.111 “bootcamp” via the MITx platform helped bridge gaps in the classroom curriculum by providing online resources to assist undergraduate students in comprehending the chemistry General Institute Requirement (GIR) better. His development of Guided Learning Demonstrations to support introductory chemistry courses at MIT has enhanced lab accessibility for the GIR while contributing to the popularity of the 5.111 courses consistently offered through MITx.
“I have had the pleasure of teaching alongside Matt on multiple occasions, and he is a remarkable educator. He is an innovator both in and out of the classroom and is unwavering in his commitment to the success of his students,” reflects Van Voorhis on Shoulders, who was honored as a 2022 MacVicar Faculty Fellow and received a Committed to Caring award from the Office of Graduate Education.
Shoulders also established the MIT Homeschool Internship Program for Science and Technology, which invites high school students to campus for paid summer research experiences in various labs across the Institute.
He is a founding member of the Department of Chemistry’s Quality of Life Committee and has served as chair for the last six years, enhancing every aspect of opportunity, professional growth, and experience in the department: “countless changes that have improved MIT for everyone,” as Van Voorhis observes, which include the creation of a peer mentoring program for graduate students and the establishment of universal graduate student exit interviews to gather data for department-wide evaluation and enhancement.
At the Institute level, Shoulders has participated in the Committee on Graduate Programs, Committee on Sexual Misconduct Prevention and Response (in which he co-led the provost’s working group on the Faculty and Staff Sexual Misconduct Survey), and the Committee on Assessment of Biohazards and Embryonic Stem Cell Research Oversight, among other responsibilities.
Shoulders graduated summa cum laude from Virginia Tech in 2004, obtaining a BS in chemistry with a minor in biochemistry. He earned his PhD in chemistry at the University of Wisconsin at Madison in 2009 under Professor Ronald Raines. Following an American Cancer Society Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Scripps Research Institute, working with professors Jeffery Kelly and Luke Wiseman, Shoulders joined the MIT Department of Chemistry faculty as an assistant professor in 2012. He also serves as an associate member of the Broad Institute and an investigator at the Center for Musculoskeletal Research at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Among his numerous accolades, Shoulders has received a NIH Director’s New Innovator Award under the NIH High-Risk, High-Reward Research Program; an NSF CAREER Award; an American Cancer Society Research Scholar Award; the Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award; and most recently the Ono Pharma Foundation Breakthrough Science Award.
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