Weed attended Yale University, graduating with a degree in political science and a letter of commendation in biology in 1993.

"I never thought I would do this well with science at college, even though I was always good at it in high school," says Weed, who took most of his electives in biology.

"Two or three professors really put energy into their efforts and blasted open the doors to science for me," he adds. "Learning by either 'their' way or 'my' way was acceptable, and became the essence of my Yale experience. Students did what they wanted, how they wanted."

The core of Weed's Yale experience was based on the university's help in granting him access to science via computers.

"Yale was the first university to think in terms of doing optical scanning, or converting paper text into electronic text as fast and as efficiently as possible," Weed says. "The university purchased a $15,000 system to do the job, and I spent a lot of time during my first two years just figuring out what to do with it. By November 1990, I was able to benefit greatly from it, and scanned 20,000 to 40,000 pages of materials over my last two-and-a-half years at Yale."

But Weed's college years consisted of more than just biology and computers.

He was active in the Yale Precision Marching Band, with whom he traveled to London as a junior, as well as in the Yale Political Union. Weed was awarded the David Everett Chantler Prize, one of approximately a dozen prestigious Yale graduation honors, which recognizes students who have "shown uncommon strength in pursuit of higher moral purpose," he says.

After graduating from Yale, Weed entered Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School for Public and International Affairs, where he again illustrated natural talent and hard work.

"I believe his dedication and optimism inspired all of us here at the Woodrow Wilson School--fellow students, staff and faculty," says Gregory M. Stankiewicz '84, a Ph.D. student in public policy who worked with Weed as a tutor and classroom aide in the required first-year statistics course.

"I felt I was working together with Matt and the professor of the course to come up with the best way possible to translate statistics, a very visual body of thought, into concepts which would be useful to Matt later on in his career," Stankiewicz says. "In this way, all three of us were learning together."

After two years at Princeton and a summer internship at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences in North Carolina, Weed received his masters in public affairs.

To this day, Stankiewicz says, people still ask him what happened to Weed.

"Matt and I often met for lunch at the school's dining hall," Stankiewicz says. "Whenever I go back now, I am always asked by the dining hall staff about how Matt is doing. Matt continues to be very popular here at the school."

Coming to Harvard

This fall, Weed returned to his studies in the life sciences and came to Harvard to pursue his doctoral degree.