From 2002 - 2017 she was the dean of the Stanford University School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences.
Matson is a winner of the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship, also known as the "genius grant," and is considered to be a "pioneer in the field of environmental science.
[6] Matson's first job was at the NASA Ames Research Center where she studied the atmosphere above the Amazon Rainforest with emphasis on the way deforestation and pollution affected the environment.
There she started a sustainability roundtable to bring people together to discuss environmental issues.
In 2002, she was named the Burton and Deedee McMurtry University Fellow in Undergraduate Education at Stanford.