her work focuses on fostering positive relationships between groups of differing religious faith. she is an advocate for interfaith engagement and multi-faith activism in the interest of the public good. she has spent her academic career teaching islamic studies and interfaith relations in historically christian institutions. as isna president, mattson established a national office for interfaith relations in washington, dc in 2006. she invited rabbi eric yoffie, president of the union for reform judaism, to speak at the organization's annual convention in chicago in 2006. mattson spoke the next year at the groups biennial where she received a standing ovation and announced "a new partnership that promotes interfaith dialogue and other relationship-building activities" between the two organizations. she also established programs with other jewish organizations. the "twinning program" with the foundation for ethnic understanding is one such program. another is the three year "jews and muslims in america" program developed in cooperation with the jewish theological seminary and funded by the carnegie institute.