Kelsey Martin, MD, PhD

David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA

Dean, Professor, Biological Chemistry, Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA

Kelsey C. Martin is the Dean for the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. She received her undergraduate degree in English and American Language and Literature at Harvard University. After serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Democratic Republic of Congo, she entered the MD-PhD program at Yale University where she studied influenza virus-host cell interactions in the laboratory of Dr. Ari Helenius, receiving her PhD degree in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry and her MD degree in 1992. She did her postdoctoral training in neurobiology with Nobel Laureate Eric Kandel at Columbia University, and joined the UCLA faculty in 1999. The Martin lab integrates molecular cell biological, electrophysiological and next‐generation genomic approaches to understand how experience changes brain connectivity to store long‐term memories.

Martin’s research program provides insight not only into learning and memory in the healthy brain, but also into cognitive disorders that accompany neuropsychiatric disorders, including autism, anxiety disorders and Alzheimer’s disease. Outside of UCLA, Martin is a Senior Fellow at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Janelia Research Campus. She is on the editorial board of Cell, the board of directors for the Burroughs Wellcome Fund and the board of directors for the McKnight Endowment Fund for Neuroscience. In 2016, she became a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the National Academy of Medicine.