Rania Matar, a Lebanese-born American of Palestinian roots, moved to the United States in 1984. Originally trained as an architect at the American University of Beirut (AUB) and Cornell University, she later shifted her focus to photography, studying at the New England School of Photography and the Maine Photographic Workshops. Matar's diverse cultural experiences and background deeply inform her photography, which explores themes of identity, womanhood, and gender, often through portraits of women in the U.S. and the Middle East.

Since 2009, Matar has taught photography workshops for teenage girls in Lebanon’s refugee camps and is currently a faculty member at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Her work has been widely exhibited in prestigious venues worldwide, including the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Carnegie Museum of Art. She has created several notable photographic series, such as SHE, L'Enfant Femme, Unspoken Conversations, Women Coming of Age, and Invisible Children. These series explore the intersections of national identity, gender, and the transition from childhood to adulthood.

Matar's photography has been recognized with numerous awards, including the 2022 Leica Women Foto Project Award and a 2018 Guggenheim Fellowship. Her publications, such as Ordinary Lives (2009), A Girl and Her Room (2012), L'Enfant-Femme (2016), and SHE (2021), have been acclaimed as some of the best photo books of their respective years.

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