Matthew Petroll, Ph.D.

Dr. Petroll received his BS degree in Biomedical Engineering from Duke University in 1984, and his PhD in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Virginia in 1989. After two years at Georgetown University in the lab of Drs. James Jester and Dwight Cavanagh, he joined the faculty at UT Southwestern in 1991. He was promoted to professor in 2005, and served as Director of the Graduate Program in Biomedical Engineering from 2012 - 2025. He currently serves as Vice Chair of Research in the Department of Ophthalmology

Dr. Petroll’s laboratory applies engineering approaches and design principles to the investigation of fundamental clinical and biological problems in ophthalmology, while providing training to graduate students, medical students and post-docs. The main focus of Dr. Petroll’s research is cell mechanics and tissue engineering, in which multidimensional time-lapse imaging is used to investigate how the mechanical behavior of corneal fibroblasts is regulated by both biochemical and biophysical stimuli. He also has a longstanding interest in the development and application of in vivo confocal microscopy, which allows quantitative 3-D imaging of the cornea and has been used in numerous research and clinical studies on corneal wound healing, toxicity, development and infection.