Rania Matar was born and raised in Lebanon and moved to the United States in 1984. Originally trained as an architect at the American University of Beirut and at Cornell University, she subsequently studied photography at the New England School of Photography and the Maine Photographic Workshops. She started teaching photography in 2009, and with the assistance of nongovernmental organizations, offered summer photography workshops to teenage girls in Lebanon’s refugee camps. She now teaches photography at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design and regularly makes class visits and gives lectures at museums, galleries, schools, and colleges in the United States and abroad.