Matter Mechanics is a nervous system coaching practice that helps people, teams, and organizations remove the hidden blockages that hold back growth. The work sits at the intersection of learning and memory science, systems science, and human development, grounded in both rigorous research and lived practice.​

Who We Are

At its roots, Matter Mechanics exists to bridge the gaps between “personal problems,” “workplace problems,” and “societal problems” by treating them as one interconnected learning system. Drawing from academic, philosophical, physiological, and spiritual insight, the practice focuses on what blocks thrivability, leadership, and growth—and how to systematically remove those blocks.​

We specialize in helping clients who are intellectually curious and responsibility‑driven, but find themselves stuck in recurring patterns of stress, misalignment, or underperformance in their lives, teams, or organizations. The approach combines neuroscience, psychology, systems thinking, and contemplative practice to create durable, coherent change.​

How We Work

Our methodology is founded in the scientific method, applied directly to real human systems. Together with each client, we observe current patterns and contexts, formulate specific questions, generate hypotheses, run small behavioral and environmental experiments, analyze the outcomes, and then refine and repeat the process.​

This creates a living feedback loop: your nervous system, habits, relationships, and culture become data for designing more effective ways of working, relating, and leading. Over time, clients build the capacity to run this process themselves—turning their life and work into an ongoing laboratory for learning and improvement.​

The Disciplines Behind Matter Mechanics

Matter Mechanics is built on more than 20 years of experience training mind, body, and spirit through learning and memory science and related disciplines.​

• Behavioral conditioning: Classical, operant, and observational learning provide a toolkit for reshaping patterns, habits, and responses.​
• Molecular neuroscience: Neural and synaptic plasticity form the biological basis for long‑term change in learning, memory, and behavior.​
• Philosophy: Insights on growth, culture, ethics, and learning help clients make sense of meaning, value, and responsibility in their decisions.​
• Meditative practice: Breathwork, Zen meditation, and active meditation ground clients in the interplay between psychology and physiology, supporting regulation, clarity, and resilience.​
• Systems science: From atomic physics and neurochemistry to culture, socioeconomic class, and education, every layer is treated as part of an interacting system that shapes outcomes and goals.​

Across all of this, a simple “Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How?” framework is used to map causality in your life and work. Clients learn to see that the triggers for trauma and the triggers for growth are often rooted in the same mechanisms, and that emotions carry information psychologically, physiologically, and spiritually.​

What Clients Gain

Clients of Matter Mechanics learn to read and redesign the systems they live and work in—internally and externally. They gain language and tools for understanding their own learning and memory processes, regulating stress and attention, and building patterns that support thrivability rather than burnout.​

Leaders and teams use this work to clarify workflows, reduce friction in communication, align behavior with values, and cultivate cultures where people can grow without sacrificing their health or integrity. The aim is not quick fixes, but coherent, science‑backed shifts that accumulate over time.​

Founder: Zac Carpenter, MS

Matter Mechanics was founded by Zac Carpenter, a neuroscientist, coach, and systems thinker whose background spans criminal justice, psychology, neuroscience, computational neuroscience, and thrivability leadership.​

• Criminal Justice (2009, associate’s‑equivalent certification): Developed a thesis on criminal profiling of American cannibalistic serial killers; certified in police dispatch; passed Ohio police academy physical fitness standards, building an early foundation in behavioral analysis and high‑stakes decision‑making.​
• BA Psychology (2014): Focused on cognitive neuroscience; conducted independent research on time‑limited testing and performance; studied stress, synaptic plasticity, and behavioral and physiological conditioning; served as Psi Beta president (2013–2014).​
• MS Neuroscience (2021): Trained in vitro, in silico, and in vivo approaches; studied long‑term potentiation and depression in tripartite synapse learning and memory circuits; researched cannabinoids in epilepsy and neurodivergence; examined hallucinogens and drug‑scheduling politics; authored a case study on a pilocytic astrocytoma brain‑tumor patient.​
• Computational Neuroscience certification (2023): Trained across modern machine‑learning techniques in neuroscience, including a project comparing activity in the left and right mesiotemporal thalamus.​
• Thrivability Leadership certification (2025): Trained in systems science, systems thinking, lateral thinking, and the intersections of human and organizational systems, with a focus on creating conditions for people and structures to thrive.​

Zac’s work integrates these domains into a single coaching and consulting practice: helping people and organizations understand how they learn, how they get stuck, and how to redesign their systems so that everything and everyone can matter—and thrive.