Matt Elliott is an Associate Teaching Professor in the Mechanical Engineering Department at Rice University.  He is a licensed Professional Engineer and holds a PhD in mechanical engineering from Texas A&M, where he studied dynamics and control systems under Prof. Bryan Rasmussen.  Before becoming a full-time academic, he worked in the offshore oil and gas business for about 10 years.  He still stays active with part-time engineering work as principal of Labrador Engineering Services, a registered engineering firm in Texas.

Dr. Elliott served as a Lecturer at Rice from 2015-2022, where he managed the capstone program and taught courses in mechanical elements, mechanism design, thermodynamics, and fluid mechanics.  During this time he was awarded the George R. Brown Award for Superior Teaching.  In 2022 he returned to Texas A&M as an Instructional Associate Professor, where he taught courses in dynamics, control systems, and introductory mechanics.  He also served as the assistant director of the Industrial Training and Assessment Center (ITAC), as well as assistant director of the Gulf Coast Center of Excellence associated with the ITAC program.  In 2026 he was honored by the department’s students with the ASME Best Teacher Award.  Dr. Elliott returned to Rice in 2026 to serve as undergraduate program director for the MECH department and teach undergraduate courses.