Matthew Lorenzen has a doctorate in sociology from the Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and a master's degree in socio-anthropology of development from the same university, a master's degree in regional studies from the Instituto Mora, Mexico, and a BA degree in sociology from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). He is currently a Guest Professor at the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (UAM), Iztapalapa Campus, in Mexico City. From 2018 to July 2023 he worked as an Associate Researcher at the Unidad Académica de Estudios Territoriales-Oaxaca (UAET) of UNAM’s Instituto de Geografía. In 2017 he completed a postdoctoral stay at the University of Southern California (USC), in the United States, and in 2016 he worked as an advisor in statistical and geographical analysis at Mexico’s Consejo Nacional de Población (CONAPO). He is a member of Mexico’s Sistema Nacional de Investigadores (SNI), level 1.

From 2016 to 2018, his main line of research revolved around the migration of Central American children to and in transit through Mexico, seen from the conceptual framework of mixed migrations and mixed-motive migrations. As of 2019, one of his lines of research has been the forest transition, with emphasis on the Mixteca Alta of Oaxaca, that is, the social factors associated with the recovery of forested areas, including migration, deagrarianization and local environmental governance. Two other current lines of research, which he has developed since his doctorate, include, on the one hand, the various displacement effects associated with touristification and gentrification, especially in rural and peri-urban areas, and, on the other hand, the links between new rurality and migration, including the issues of rural depopulation and repopulation. These lines of research have been addressed through mixed methods and have been reflected in dozens of publications (books, book chapters and articles in indexed journals).

He has taught undergraduate and graduate courses on social theory, geographic information systems, migration policies and rural geography at the UNAM, USC, the Universidad de Guadalajara and the UAM.