Matthew E. Helgeson

We’re deeply disappointed negotiations for a global plastics treaty have ended without a final agreement.
Over the past 3 years, the momentum has been undeniable. The world now understands, plastic is a full lifecycle problem that demands systemic solutions, & that its health impacts are profound.

Keep Calm and Carry a Sandwich

*Correction – NPR-A, not SPR.

Trump Reportedly Set to Offer Putin Access to Alaska’s Resources and Sanctions Relief

My grandfather was Chief of the USGS Alaska Branch, and spent 20 yrs of his career leading expeditions to map and survey the Alaskan interior, including what would become the SPR. I’m glad he’s not alive to see this betrayal of his life’s work.

united24media.com/latest-news/...

The U.S. government should fund Ph.D. students directly through fellowships, and not tied to grants for specific research projects. This makes clear to all that a primary benefit of government investment in research is a highly skilled technical workforce.

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed." 

-Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1953

This sounds like the exposition to a pandemic disaster movie ☣️

If it seems oddly quiet around here, it’s because @pauldauenhauer.bsky.social has rushed off to his basement to redirect his social bots to work on buying a dozen of these…

Trump Has Cut Science Funding to Its Lowest Level in Decades The lag in funding extends far beyond D.E.I. initiatives, affecting almost every area of science: chemistry, computing, engineering, materials and more.

www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

If you agree that everything flows (πάντα ῥεῖ), then consider joining us at the 96th Annual Meeting of @sorheology.bsky.social, held in Santa Fe, New Mexico, from October 19-23, 2025. The abstract submission deadline has been extended to May 30, 2025! #SOR2025
www.rheology.org/sorabst/

Trump’s NIH And NSF Cuts Estimated To Cost The U.S. Economy $10 Billion Annually Economists find public R&D drives U.S. productivity growth — and pays for itself

www.forbes.com/sites/johndr...

Pretty sure you tagged the wrong Matt Helgeson 😂

We are thrilled to announce the winners of the 2025 Journal of #Rheology #Publication Award: Michael Burroughs, Yuanyi Zhang, Abhishek Shetty, Christopher Bates, Matt Helgeson and L. Gary Leal. In celebration, the winning publication will be available open-source for all. @professor-meh.bsky.social

Blunt letter to the editor on ACS: "If ACS won’t stand up now, it should stand down." cen.acs.org/business/Rea... #chemsky 🧪⚗️

While I congratulate all the 2025 NSF GRFP awardees on their achievements, it’s shocking to see that the # of awards is down >50% from prior years.

This is a disgrace to our top young talent in science and technology. This program should be growing, not shrinking.

www.nsfgrfp.org

Spontaneous Formation of Core–Shell Microdroplets during Conventional Coacervate Phase Separation We report the single-step formation and stability of protocell-like, core-shell coacervate droplets comprising a polyelectrolyte-rich shell and a solvent-rich vacuole core from the poly(allylamine hydrochloride) (PAH) and poly(acrylic acid) (PAA) system. These double emulsion (DE) coacervate droplets coexist with single emulsion (SE) droplets, suggesting a kinetic mechanism of formation. We use high-throughput microscopy and machine learning to classify droplet morphologies across various final compositions (polyelectrolyte ratios and salt concentrations) and processing routes (mixing rate and thermodynamic path). We find that DE droplets form preferentially over SE droplets at a wide range of compositions using a slow injection mixing rate. DE droplet formation is enhanced at lower salt (NaCl) levels and near 1:1 charge stoichiometry, showing a preference for polycation excess. DE droplets are stable to the micron scale and retain their core-shell structure even after coalescence. Nevertheless, they are metastable; direct observations of various coarsening phenomena suggest that they are primarily stabilized by the viscoelasticity and high viscosity of the polymer-rich shell. Overall, the scalable, simple mixing process used herein offers a novel mechanism to produce multiphase coacervate droplets that is orthogonal to existing routes, which require either dropwise synthesis or thermodynamic tuning.

New paper from my PhD with @professor-meh.bsky.social! We show a simple route to all-water multiple emulsions, via coacervation with a single(!) dense phase. Amid size/shape variance, we use ML to quantify trends in droplet structure with mixing condition, which diverge from classical W/O/W systems.

To @acs.org : the ethics (and optics) of putting trackers on conference attendees in the current US political climate are bad. Several attendees in my session (including me) took them off and either threw them away or recycled them in the badge return box.

These are extremely challenging times for early-career faculty. Here is my office's small contribution to make their hard and important work a bit easier:

Download our curated and comprehensive database of funding opportunities for early-career faculty.

Here: research.jhu.edu/rdt/funding-...

Welcome!

On changes to #NIH indirect rates, there is a law in place that prohibits NIH from making such changes without the approval of Congress. See Division D, Title II Section 224 of The Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2024 (Public Law No: 118-47) grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

Hello rheologists! The SoR Future of Rheology Symposium is a fantastic virtual seminar series highlighting early career researchers. Today at 1pm EST my student Anukta will give a talk on her work with dilute polymer Rheology. Details below - please consider attending!

SoCal thanks you for your business 😎

Congratulations! 🎉

Your daily reminder that propulsion is neither a necessary nor sufficient property of a robot.

By all means, let’s cut everybody’s pet pork defense project from the 80s/90s/00s (which agreed absolutely are there because of career politicians). But let’s also do the common sense cost savings career bureaucrats have argued for for decades that don’t require cutting a single department or job.

If you want ‘efficiency’, let’s start with obvious things we’ve known for decades will slash spending overnight. For example, CMS projects that allowing Medicaid to aggressively negotiate prices solely for the 10 most-prescribed drugs will eliminate 22% of that program’s annual spending in FY2026.

90% of all federal spending in FY2025 is accounted for by non-discretionary benefits (Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, etc. – 58%), defense (18%) and interest on the debt (14%). Which of these is “past its usefulness”? If the goal is efficiency, the rest is just fiddling at the margins.

My undergrad Fluid Mechanics students used ultrasound data and Bernoulli to diagnose mitral valve stenosis on their midterm exam.

Just sayin’.