Dr Mathis is currently a professor of Microbiology and Immunobiology at Harvard Medical School. She is Director of the JDRF Center on Immunological Tolerance in Type-1 Diabetes at HMS.

Dr. Diane Mathis obtained a BSc from Wake Forest University and a Ph.D. from the University of Rochester. She performed postdoctoral studies at the Laboratoire de Génétique Moléculaire des Eucaryotes in Strasbourg, France and at Stanford University Medical Center. Dr Mathis returned to France at the end of 1983, establishing a laboratory in conjunction with Christophe Benoist at the Institut de Genetique et de Biologie Moleculaire et Cellulaire in Strasbourg. The Mathis/Benoist lab moved to the Joslin Diabetes Center at the end of 1999. The lab joined the Harvard Medical School Pathology department in spring 2009.

Dr Mathis was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2003.

Dr. Mathis is also an active member of the Commitee on Immunology at Harvard Medical School, the Broad Institute, the Dana Farber/Harvard Cancer Center and the Harvard Stem Cell Institute.