Matlab processes can easily be run in the background of any UNIX workstation.
Most Matlab commands do not require interactive responses from the user.
These commands simply need to be executed in a certain order.

The set of commands to be executed are written in a text file "run.txt".
This file is a an ASCII text file that may be written using vi or any other text editor utility.
Each line in the file contains a command to be run.
Comments are included by the % symbol.

"run.txt" should contain commands as you would type them in matlab.

The general form for running Matlab in the background is given below (note, you could write a script like this).

unsetenv DISPLAY
renice 9 $$
module load matlab
( nohup matlab < run.txt > run.out ) &
The unsetenv command simply turns off the screen plotting so future users on the console of that computer are not bothered with your screen figures.
The renice command sets the nice value of your current process (and all process that you start from it) to 9 ($$ is an environment variable in both sh and csh that is the Current Process ID). The fouth command "(..." starts matlab and feeds it commands from "run.txt" (nohup starts matlab - the ampersand at the end starts everything between the parenthesis as a detached process).
Any matlab information output at run time is written to a file "run.out".
Matlab will print any error information to this file if it finds a problem.

An example file is included here

See also (these commands will show the man pages for nice and nohup): 

man nice
and
man nohup