Rate My Professor Matthew Fields

Fields earned his Ph.D. in Microbiology (minor Biochemistry/Biological Engineering) from Cornell University in 2001, M.S. in Biological Sciences from Mississippi State University in 1995, and B.S. in Biology/Chemistry from Western Kentucky University in 1993. His career trajectory includes Assistant Professor at Miami University (2003-2006), Research Staff Scientist and Postdoctoral Research Associate at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (2001-2003), and at Montana State University as Assistant Professor (2007-2011), Associate Professor (2011 onward), and Professor. He has received the Provost's Award for Graduate Research/Creativity Mentoring (2017), Wiley Faculty Award for Meritorious Research (2011), MSU Award of Excellence (2010), Center for Biofilm Engineering Faculty Research Award (2009), and participated in the ASM Branch Lectureship Program (2009-2011); nominated for Faculty Collegiality Award (2014). Fields serves on the U.S. Department of Energy's Biological and Environmental Research Advisory Committee, as Specialty Editor for Frontiers in Microbiology - Microbiotechnology, Ecotoxicology & Bioremediation (2011-present), and Editorial Board of Applied and Environmental Microbiology (2006-present). Key publications include "Microbial diversity in water and sediment of Lake Chaka, an athalassohaline lake in northwestern China" (Applied and Environmental Microbiology, 2006), "Metagenomic insights into evolution of a heavy metal-contaminated groundwater microbial community" (The ISME Journal, 2010), "Engineering microbial consortia for controllable outputs" (The ISME Journal, 2016), and "Small and mighty: adaptation of superphylum Patescibacteria to groundwater environment drives their genome simplicity" (Microbiome, 2020). His leadership advances global biofilm research impacts.