Matthewson received her BA and MA from
Victoria University of Wellington. She received her PhD in linguistics from the
University of British Columbia in 1996. In 1998, her PhD thesis, "Determiner Systems and Quantificational Strategies: Evidence from Salish," was awarded the
E. W. Beth Dissertation Prize, given to outstanding PhD theses in the fields of Logic, Language, and Information. Matthewson's research explores how variation in semantics and pragmatics among languages can provide insight into the proposal of a
Universal Grammar. Her paper, On the Methodology of Semantic Fieldwork, is one of her most widely cited papers. Matthewson co-edited the 2015 book
Methodologies in Semantic Fieldwork from
Oxford University Press. Matthewson also co-developed the Totem Field Storyboards project, which seeks to gather linguistic information from speakers without direct interviews. == Key publications ==