Brenda Matthews’ research is focussed on the structure and evolution of debris disks, and their association with planetary systems. She is the PI of the Herschel Key Programme DEBRIS, which targeted 446 nearby A- to M-type stars searching for evidence of circumstellar dust. She is also the Canadian co-ordinator of the SCUBA-2 Observations of Nearby Stars (SONS) Survey, which targets 115 known debris disk hosts for submillimetre imaging with the JCMT. She is also interested in the evolution of disks from the protoplanetary phase, utilizing continuum, spectral line and polarization observations.