Matt Gibson sat in on a developmental biology class taught by Yale geneticist Frank Ruddle, it lit a spark, and he began intensive undergraduate research at Yale with Drosophila geneticist Doug Kankel—Ruddle’s co-instructor—and was awarded a BS in biology in 1994. From there Gibson earned a Ph.D. in Zoology with geneticist Gerold Schubiger at University of Washington in 2001, where he studied development and regeneration of Drosophila imaginal discs, larval appendage primordia that ultimately give rise to the eyes, wings and legs of the adult fly. In 2001 became a postdoctoral fellow in the lab of renowned Drosophila geneticist Norbert Perrimon at Harvard Medical School. He joined Stowers Institute for Medical Research in 2006 as Associate Investigator.