Dr. Beverley Matthews is a Senior Curator at the FlyBase DataBase of Drosophila Genes and Genomes, the major database that supports Genetic and Genomic research for the organism Drosophila melanogaster. Drosophila is a major model organism for understanding the genetic and genomic basis of human biology, health and disease.

Dr. Matthews, based at Harvard University, was one of the founding members of FlyBase and has been with the project for over 25 years. She was a major contributor to the complete annotation of the Drosophila melanogaster genome and continues to be involved in defining all of its elements. She is also actively involved in cataloguing all of the known Drosophila mutations, some of which are analogous to, and used as models for human disease.

Dr. Matthews has been an active member of the Friends of the Bedford Free Public Library for over 20 years, where she is Chairperson of the Community Book Sales. She has served on the Friends Board for 15 years in the roles of President, Secretary, and Member-at-large.