Mathew Zachariah was born in Tiruvalla, Kerala, India in 1935 and spent some of his childhood in Borneo. He graduated from the University of Madras with a B.Ed in 1956 before moving the United States as a Fulbright Scholar. He graduated from the State University of New York with a MS in Education, English and Social Sciences (1962) and from the University of Colorado at Boulder with his Ph.D. in Social Sciences and Education (1965).

Zachariah accepted a position as Assistant Professor in the University of Calgary's Faculty of Education in 1966, becoming an Associate Professor in 1969 and full Professor in 1973. He also served as Department Head of Educational Foundations (1976-1979) and as Associate Dean (1982-1983, 1993-1994) before retiring in 2000. Zachariah was a comparative sociologist of education who also conducted research and provided consulting and volunteer service in the area of international and multicultural education. He was awarded the Alberta Human Rights Award in 1989 and was the first Canadian to receive the Honourary Fellow designation from the Comparative and International Education Society.

Zachariah died in Calgary on October 25, 2016.