Is this not a case for using {switch="||do-thing"}?
{switch='<div class="row">||'}
{cf_about_us_biographies}
<div class="four columns">
<img src="{cf_about_us_bio_photo}">
<ul class="accordion">
<li>
<div class="title">
<h5>{cf_about_us_bio_name}<br><span>{cf_about_us_bio_title}</span></h5>
</div>
<div class="content">
{cf_about_us_bio_biog}
</div>
</li>
</ul>
</div>
{/cf_about_us_biographies}
{switch='||</div>'}
The issue there though is if you have a number of items that isn't divisible by 3. From memory there's a useful plugin for handling this but I can't recall its name off the top of my head.
Try looking here Output matrix rows in sets of two