Gloria Mattera has been a member of the Green Party since 2001.  Coming to the Green Party through the Nader campaign, Gloria has been involved in building a left, political independent movement since the mid 90's as a leader in the Labor Party New York Metro Chapter.  She has served as a coordinating member of System Change Not Climate Change and is a founding member of Left Elect.

Gloria Mattera has a master's degree in special education from Bank Street College of Education in Manhattan. After teaching special needs preschoolers, she moved into the field of child life, working primarily with poor immigrant children and families in hospitals. Working in the New York City public hospital system over the years, Gloria experienced firsthand how unjust and inhumane this country's healthcare system is and got involved in the single-payer healthcare movement. She has been a board member of the Physicians for a National Health Program NY Metro Chapter for many years. Gloria soon realized that the two corporate parties in power would never bring a national health program to the U.S. and turned toward independent political party building, initially as a founding member of the Labor Party under Tony Mazzocchi, then NYC coordinator of Labor for Nader in 2000, and finally the Green Party.

Gloria has been a groundbreaking Green Party candidate on four occasions. Her initial run for NYC City Council in 2001 was as an independent socialist who sought and received the Green Party ballot line. Running on a slogan of "People's Needs, Not Corporate Greed," Gloria championed a platform that addressed the disparity between the 1% in the richest city in the world and the 99% of those trying to get by.

Receiving 10% of the vote as a first-time candidate, Gloria also was one of the first Green Party candidates to receive NYC campaign finance matching funds, which enabled her campaign to open a district office and hire campaign staff. She ran again for the same city council seat in 2003, almost doubling her vote percentage, which pushed the Green Party into second place above the Republican candidate, and she again received NYC matching funds.

Striving to increase the visibility of the Green Party in Brooklyn, Gloria ran for borough president in 2005 on an anti-eminent-domain platform, focusing on the mega-development of a professional basketball arena and high-rise luxury housing in the Atlantic Yards. Scores of volunteers from community groups fighting the development project made it possible for Gloria's campaign to collect over 5,000 signatures for ballot access and raise $50,000 to meet the higher bracket of NYC campaign finance matching funds. Gloria received 7% of the vote in a borough of 1.5 million voters.

Her last campaign was in 2010 as the running mate to Howie Hawkins in his first Green Party candidacy for governor of New York. Their campaign garnered over 60,000 votes to grant the Green Party back its ballot status.

In addtion to her new role as GPUS Steering Committee Gloria is currently the co-chair of the Green Party of New York and a delegate to the National Committee.