Dr. Matache is also a member of the Lancet Commission on Reparations and Redistribute Justice and the O’Neill-Lancet Commission on Racism, Structural Discrimination and Global Health.

Dr. Matache’s research focuses on the manifestations and impacts of racism and other systems of oppression in different geographical and political contexts. Her research examines discrimination, reparations, social determinants of health—including education and social and economic disparities—and their nexus with the historical past and contemporary public policies, with a particular focus on anti-Roma racism. In 2017, she co-edited Realizing Roma Rights, an investigation of anti-Roma racism in Europe, in collaboration with Jacqueline Bhabha and Andrzej Mirga. Dr. Matache is also the co-editor of Time for Reparations, a 2021 volume exploring the issue of reparations across a broad range of historical and geographic contexts and academic disciplines, along with Jacqueline Bhabha and Caroline Elkins.

Dr. Matache earned a BA in social work, an MA in European social policies, and a PhD in political science, all from the University of Bucharest, Romania and an MPA from the Harvard Kennedy School. From 2005 to 2012, Dr. Matache was the Executive Director of Romani CRISS, a human rights organization that defends the rights of Roma people. In 2012, she was awarded the Hauser postdoctoral research fellowship at the Harvard Chan School’s François-Xavier Bagnoud (FXB) Center for Health and Human Rights and became an instructor at the Harvard Chan School in 2014.