Professor Matson is an interdisciplinary sustainability scientist at the Stanford University Doerr School of Sustainability. She is the Goldman Professor, Emerita in the Department of Earth System Science and the Woods Institute for the Environment, and served for 15 years as the Naramore Dean of Stanford’s School of Earth.  Her research has addressed a range of environment and sustainability issues, including sources and sinks of greenhouse gases, sustainability of complex social-environmental systems (including agricultural systems), vulnerability and resilience to climate change, and knowledge-action linkages that can contribute to sustainability transformations at scale.

She currently serves on the board of directors of the World Resources Institute and the International Science Council, and advisory boards of the US National Academies Divison on Earth and Life Studies and the Gund Institute at the University of Vermont. She served as chair, co-chair, vice-chair and member of the World Wildlife Fund-US Board of Directors from 2003-2022, and has served on numerous other national and international NGO and scientific boards, steering committes and commissions.

She is an elected member of the US National Academy of Science and American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a MacArthur Award recipient, and has received many honorary fellowships, doctorates and awards.