STEPHEN L. MATSON (1949-2023)

BY JOHN L. ANDERSON AND
WILLIAM J. WARD

STEPHEN LEE MATSON died on Nov. 26, 2023, after a courageous battle with cancer. Steve was a chemical engineer, inventor, and entrepreneur. He was brilliant, creative, kind, and generous. He was devoted to his wife Stella, his two children, and three grandchildren. All those he touched, whether family, colleagues, or friends, became admirers.

Steve was born on July 22, 1949, in Jamestown, New York, but moved with his family to Richardson, Texas, when he was young. He attended Cornell, achieved an extraordinary academic record, and received a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering. He worked at the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation in Albany from 1971-72, where he met Stella. He returned to Cornell in 1972 to pursue a master’s degree in chemical engineering. In 1974 he joined General Electric (GE) at its R&D Center in Schenectady, New York. In 1976 he took a leave from GE to pursue a Ph.D. under the direction of John Quinn (NAE 1978) at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1979 he returned to GE’s R&D Center and worked on a variety of membrane-based separations. In 1982 he left GE to become director of research at Bend Research Inc. in Oregon. He left Bend Research in 1984 and co-founded Sepracor Inc., which grew to be a mid-cap specialty pharmaceutical firm focused on developing improved single-isomer and active-metabolite drugs (e.g., Lunesta, Brovana, Xopenex, and Allegra).

Steve invented and patented methods for separating mixtures of chiral molecules using the concept of a “membrane reactor.” Sepracor had product sales in excess of $1 billion per year and employed 2,300 people when it was acquired by Dainippon Sumitomo Pharma in 2009; a year later, the company’s name was changed to Sunovion Inc. After leaving Sepracor, Steve held faculty positions at Worcester Polytechnic Institute and Tufts University. He also played key roles in the start-up of other technology companies in fields as diverse as combinatorial chemistry, chiral synthesis, bio-chromatography, and blood filtration.

Steve was elected to the NAE at the age of 45, which is quite young for the Academy. He was a member of sections 2 and 3 (bioengineering and chemical, respectively). He won major awards for his engineering accomplishments, including the 1997 Professional Progress Award of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE). He was named one of the “One Hundred Chemical Engineers of the Modern Era” by the AIChE in recognition of his “work on multi-phase membrane reactors, liquid-liquid extractive membrane reactors, enzymatic membranes for synthesis and separation of peptides,” and he was elected a director, a position he held from 1997-99. He received two R&D 100 Awards, one in 1984 at Bend Research and the other in 1988 at Sepracor. He was on the editorial board of the Journal of Membrane Science from 1984-2007 and served as president of the North American Membrane Society from 1996-97. He served on the scientific advisory board of several biotech companies. His service to the NAE included serving as vice chair of the Section 3 Peer Committee and as a member of the Committee on Membership.

The outdoors was Steve’s playground — he loved to hike and mountain climb, and he travelled the world with Stella. He was a very generous individual with a strong sense of philanthropy; giving was his credo. He was a strong advocate of non-profits that related to helping people — such as Engineers Without Borders and various universities — and he gave his time and donated money to several organizations both in the U.S. and South America to support the underprivileged. Steve was connected to Mano a Mano International, an organization that conducts many projects to support impoverished people in Bolivia. Besides contributing monetarily, Steve spent time in Boliva working on water projects that helped farmers and education projects for schools, as well as setting up remote medical facilities. Steve also founded and was executive director of ConTechs Associates Inc., a not-for-profit entity that teams up senior engineering volunteers in the U.S. with engineering professors and students in developing countries for the purpose of performing project work with both educational and societal value. Steve was passionate about community service on a global scale.

Steve was a gifted intellect with a tremendous curiosity and the ability to reduce complex problems down to the essentials. His colleagues were in awe of him. There are many “Matson stories.” One of us (J.L.A.) had the privilege of teaching him in a graduate course. He received a perfect score of 100 on the final exam. The teacher discovered an error in his own answer sheet when grading Steve’s exam. When the teacher asked him what he thought of the course, Steve thought for a few seconds and said, “Good course” — high praise from him. The roles of teacher and student were often reversed with Steve.

Steve was a wonderful, loving husband, father, and grandfather. He was kind and always put his family first. He taught his three grandsons about science and did experiments with them to spark their interest in the subject. He also had a good sense of humor and loved to tell jokes to his grandsons, who, in turn, gained a sense of humor from Steve.

There are precious few people in the world who stand above their colleagues in ability but are unpretentious and eager to help; Steve Matson was one of them. His passing was a loss for all of us, but memories of him make us better. He will not be forgotten.