Matt was a recipient of both the Summer 2016 Center of African Studies FLAS fellowship and the Academic Year 2016-2017 CAS FLAS. In summer 2016 he took Arabic here at UIUC through the SILMW (Summer Institute for Languages of the Muslim World) program. In the academic year he will be taking Introductory Persian, in addition to Arabic and other courses relevant to the field. He plans to graduate in May 2017.