Matt received his undergraduate degree in chemistry and his master's degree in chemical and physical oceanography from the University of Otago in New Zealand, where he is from. His fields of expertise include tsunami modeling, paleo tsunami research, hydrodynamics, sea air-gas exchange, land and ocean field campaigns, currents, control automation, and ocean carbon.
He worked at BIOS as a research specialist for 5 years, from 2012-2017, before embarking on a volunteer job in Papau New Guinea as a marine science advisor to the National Fisheries College where he worked to improve support for the Nago Island Maricultura and Research Facility's Ocean Acidication Programme. In early 2019 he returned to BIOS to continue his work as a research specialist with the Bermuda Atlantic Time-series Study (BATS) program.