Tracye Matthews is a historian, curator, and documentary filmmaker. She is currently the associate  director of the Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture at the University of Chicago, where  she served as a Mellon Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow in 2004-2005.

Matthews was the media curator for the Teen Chicago Project (2004) at the Chicago Historical Society  (CHS—now Chicago History Museum). In 2003, she curated Harold Washington: The Man and The  Movement, a major exhibition at CHS commemorating the twentieth anniversary of the election of  Chicago’s first Black mayor. Dr. Matthews previously served as a public historian and project  coordinator of Neighborhoods: Keepers of Culture, also at the Chicago Historical Society. In 2006, Dr.  Matthews served on the steering committee for the National Museum of Mexican Art’s (NNMA) groundbreaking exhibition, The African Presence in Mexico: From Yanga to the Present. She also produced  a video installation and organized scholarly symposiums on Afro-Mexican studies at both the  NNMA and the DuSable Museum of African American History. In 2010, she wrote the historical  script for the National Urban League’s Centennial Exhibition, which is currently touring the U.S.

Matthews’ other involvement in documentary film and video projects includes work at the awardwinning ROJA Productions, TV Gals Productions and Firelight Media in New York City; and Our  Film Works, Exhibit Media, Juneteenth Productions and the Morten Group in Chicago. She has also  served on review panels for the National Black Programming Consortium and the Independent  Television Service (ITVS). Presently, Matthews is in pre-production on a semi-autobiographical  documentary exploring adoption in African American communities.

Matthews was previously an assistant professor in the Africana Studies Department at the University  of Massachusetts Boston. Her work has been published in numerous anthologies and journals  including Race and Class, Sisters in Struggle: African American Women in the Civil Rights-Black Power  Movement, The Black Panther Party Reconsidered, and Black Women in the United States: An Historical  Encyclopedia. She is currently writing a book on the gender and sexual politics of the Black Panther  Party.

Ms. Matthews earned her bachelor’s degree in Psychology, and master’s and doctorate in American History from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor