Professor Matthew Mason

I gained my undergraduate degree at the University of Cambridge and went on to complete a PhD on the structure and function of the ear in mammals in the Department of Zoology. I then moved to the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), a very different university and city, where I used laser interferometry to study the nanometer-amplitude vibrations of the ears of frogs. Having returned to Cambridge in 2001, I eventually became the University Physiologist and Professor of Comparative Physiology in the Department of Physiology, Development & Neuroscience. I very much enjoy teaching physiology and neurobiology to our medical, veterinary and science students, including running all the first-year physiology practical classes. My research continues to centre around the vertebrate ear, recent projects ranging from 3D reconstructions of 40-million-year-old fossil ears using micro-computed tomography, to a consideration of the microvasculature of the human ear ossicles and their embryological development.

I am accredited as a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Educators and Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. In 2018, I was awarded a Pilkington Prize for excellence in teaching within the University of Cambridge and I was the 2025 winner of the Physiological Society’s Otto Hutter Teaching Prize.