Matias Kirst joined the School of Forest, Fisheries, and Geomatics Sciences in 2005 as an Assistant Professor in Quantitative Genetics. In addition to his affiliation to the FFGS, he is also a member of the Plant Molecular and Cellular Biology Program (PMCB) and the University of Florida Genetics Institute (UFGI). His group in Quantitative Genomics Research is part of the Forest Genomics Laboratory.

Research is focused in three areas: (1) Fundamental Genomic Research in the genetic regulation of gene expression and gene expression networks; (2) Applied Genomic Research for the discovery of genes, metabolic and regulatory networks that control variation in wood quality, growth and other important traits for the forestry and agronomic industry; and (3) Technology and genomic tool development.