Dr. Brenda Matthews is an astronomer with the National Research Council of Canada, located at the Herzberg Astronomy & Astrophysics Research Centre in Victoria, BC.  Her research is focused on exoplanetary systems, particularly the cold belts of comets called debris disks because of the dust and gas that are rendered detectable through cometary collisions. Dr. Matthews has led extensive observing campaigns to detect and characterize debris disk over  the last decade, including key programs on the Herschel Space Observatory and the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope, and she subsequently authored or co-authored two substantive reviews on debris disks. Dr. Matthews is an expert on observations from the infrared to centimetre regime, particularly interferometry and polarimetry. She acted as past Chair of the Equity and Inclusivity Committee for the Canadian Astronomical Society and served on Canada’s Astronomy and Astrophysics Long Range Plan 2020. She currently serves on the Science Advisory Committee for the ngVLA, a next generation Very Large Array.