Matilde João Mota is a PhD Fellow at the United Nations University (UNU-MERIT) and Maastricht University.
Her research interests span gender economics and social protection, with a particular focus on social norms and female economic activity, as well as poverty and inequality in their different and intersecting dimensions.
Prior to her PhD fellowship, Matilde worked as a Research Assistant at UNU-MERIT, exploring the effectiveness of social protection instruments in protecting households from the impacts of energy transitions in low and middle-income countries. Matilde also served as a Research Associate at the European University Institute (EUI) and as a Supervisory Policies Analyst at the European Central Bank (ECB). Particularly, she designed and implemented capacity-building projects with different European institutions and integrated a team delivering policy recommendations on financial inclusion, innovation, and green finance.
Matilde holds a double MSc degree in Public Policy and Human Development from Maastricht University, with a specialisation in Social Protection Policy. She also earned a BSc in Economics and an MSc in Finance from the Nova School of Business and Economics in Lisbon.