Matthew Watson grew up in New Zealand and went to school in Wellington and Hawera. After finishing high school in Wellington, he went to the University of Canterbury in Christchurch to study Chemical and Process Engineering. He graduated with first class honours and moved to the US to earn his MS and PhD degrees in Chemical Engineering from Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. 

He worked in the industrial gases sector for 15 years at Air Products and Chemical, primarily in research and development roles.  His work spanned materials development, pilot plant scale-up, development and commercialisation of oxy-fuel combustion technology, and management of adsorption R&D groups in both Allentown, Pennsylvania, and in Vancouver, British Columbia. 

In 2015 he was appointed to an academic position the University of Canterbury and is now a Professor of Chemical and Process Engineering.  He is a Fellow of Engineering NZ, a Fellow and Board Member of the Institution of Chemical Engineers, a lifetime member of the American Ceramic Society, and a member of the Royal Society of NZ. He is an Honorary Research Associate in the Robinson Research Institute at Victoria University of Wellington and the Deputy Director of the Biomolecular Interaction Centre (https://www.canterbury.ac.nz/bic/) a multi-disciplinary research centre dedicated to the study of molecular interactions critical to biological function.  

Matthew (https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthew-watson-769baa/) holds minority ownership and advisory positions at Nilo (https://www.nilo.world/) a plastics recycling technology company, and Aspiring Materials (https://www.aspiringmaterials.com/) a minerals processing and decarbonisation company. He is a founding member of the hydrogen direct reduced iron (H2-DRI) technology company, CullBeck (https://cullbeck.com/).

His research (https://profiles.canterbury.ac.nz/Matt-James-Watson) focusses on using renewably generated electricity to decarbonise heavy industry including ammonia, cement, steel, and other metals. In addition, he has led research on the economic viability of producing maple and birch syrups in New Zealand (https://www.treesyrup.nz/). He currently teaches a professional engineering skills class to more than 1000 first year students annually and coordinates the final year design projects for chemical engineering students. 

When he is not doing chemical engineering stuff, he enjoys woodworking in his garage, backyard beekeeping, and playing acoustic guitar.