Matthew O'Reilly

Matt is from Billings, MT. In his formative years, he was encouraged to question how/why things worked, and he practiced his logical thinking skills during policy debate club and worked on his teamwork skills on the soccer field. He earned his bachelors at Xavier University (Go Muskies!), where he explored his interests in teaching by tutoring and teaching study groups in general and organic chemistry. He pursued doctoral studies in synthetic organic chemistry at Vanderbilt University in the Lindsley Group (Go Dores!), where he developed as a scientist and won a few intramural softball championships (also a few predoctoral fellowships from the Vanderbilt Institute of Chemical Biology and the ACS Division of Medicinal Chemistry). He decided to explore opportunities in chemical biology as a postdoc, and was awarded an Arnold O. Beckman Postdoctoral Fellowship to support his work in the Blackwell Lab at University of Wisconsin (Go Badgers!). Matt spent three years as an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls, which gave him time to greatly improve his teaching and explore many of his research interests. In 2020, Matt joined Villanova as an assistant professor (GO CATS!!!), and he thoroughly enjoys getting to know his students, teaching in the classroom and the research lab, and supporting his students toward their next big steps. Outside of Villanova, Matt’s spouse Erica works as a psychiatric nurse practitioner, and they are enjoying raising their two daughters Lena and Maya and their labradoodle Gromit. Life is good.

Education

• Ph.D. Vanderbilt University (2009 — 2014)
• B.S. Xavier University (2005 — 2009)