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About

Matthew Grasinger is a materials scientist and computational mechanician whose research sits at the intersection of soft matter physics, electromechanics, and multiscale modeling. His work focuses on electroactive soft materials, dielectric elastomers, and architected polymer networks—areas with transformative implications for soft robotics, flexible electronics, biomedical devices, and energy harvesting. Grasinger's most influential contribution, his 2021 study on flexoelectricity in soft elastomers (70 citations), uncovered the molecular mechanisms responsible for giant flexoelectric effects, offering a powerful new framework for designing next-generation electroactive materials capable of large deformation. His complementary work on architected elastomer networks (27 citations) demonstrated how structural design at the network level can dramatically enhance electromechanical coupling, addressing a longstanding limitation in available dielectric elastomers. Grasinger has also advanced understanding of how polymer networks accommodate stress through local rotation, how thermal fluctuations destabilize nanoscale origami structures, and how liquid metal composites behave under deformation. Spanning scales from molecular to continuum, his multiscale modeling approaches have helped establish clearer theoretical foundations for the rational design of smart, responsive materials that promise to redefine what soft machines can do.