Rate My Professor Matthew Santer

Matthew Santer is Professor of Aerospace Structures in the Department of Aeronautics within the Faculty of Engineering at Imperial College London. He obtained his MEng degree in Engineering Science from the University of Oxford and his PhD from the University of Cambridge, where his doctoral research focused on the design of multistable structures. Following his PhD, he remained at Cambridge undertaking postdoctoral research before joining Imperial College London in January 2011. His career progression includes roles as Senior Lecturer in Structures from 2013 to 2019 and Reader in Aerospace Structures from 2019 to 2023, culminating in his promotion to Professor in 2023. In addition to his academic position, he serves as Co-Director of the School of Space, Security and Telecoms, one of Imperial's new Schools of Convergence Science. Santer is a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society and was inducted as an Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics in the class of 2019.

Professor Santer's research specializes in adaptive and morphing structures, deployable mechanisms, and advanced optimization techniques for aerospace applications. His work encompasses origami-inspired deployable surfaces, novel heat shields for human spaceflight, thermo-structural design of hypersonic vehicles under extreme nonlinearity, structural metamaterials, shock control bumps, and AI-based tools for space debris detection. With over 1,700 citations and an h-index of 21 on Google Scholar, his contributions have significant impact in the field. Key publications include 'A Topology Optimization Framework for the Inverse Design of Nonlinear Mechanical Metamaterials' (2026, co-authored with Robert Hewson), 'Rigid-Foldable Parabolic Deployable Reflector Concept' (2023), 'Passive control of 3D adaptive shock control bumps using morphing surfaces' (2022), and 'Roadmap on metamaterial theory, modelling and design' (2025). He has received accolades such as the 2024 AIAA Structural Dynamics Best Paper award and the Royal Aeronautical Society written paper prize in 2010. Santer teaches modules on spacecraft structures, supervises PhD students in aeronautics, and delivered his Imperial Inaugural Lecture 'Packing for a trip to space' in 2024, discussing deployable structures and structural nonlinearity for space missions.