Marie H. Martin, PhD, MEd

Dr. Marie H. Martin works to strengthen human capacity to improve health outcomes in low-resource settings. She is Associate Vice President for Global Initiatives at Vanderbilt Health, where she develops and expands international institutional initiatives. She is also Assistant Dean for Global Health Education at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine (VUSM), Associate Director for Education and Training at the Vanderbilt Institute for Global Health (VIGH), and Associate Professor of Health Policy. Her teaching and research focus on where health, public policy and education meet, especially agenda-setting and global health finance.

Dr. Martin builds capacity among students, trainees, and faculty from the U.S. and from low- and middle-income countries. For nearly two decades, she has led partnerships with universities and governments in Zambia, Liberia, Nigeria, Kenya, and Guyana. With partners there, she helped design the University of Guyana's first MPH program, the first structured PhD program at the University of Zambia and multiple academic programs at the University of Liberia. She also co-built faculty mentorship and leadership programs that partner institutions now run themselves.

At Vanderbilt, she co-developed the Global Health Track of the MPH Program and led it for 14 years. She directs the MPH Essential Skills in Global Health course and co-directs the VUSM Global Health Integrated Science Course and Advanced Elective. Beyond Vanderbilt, she has served on the Consortium of Universities for Global Health (CUGH) Subcommittee, NACCHO's Global-Domestic Health Expert Advisory Group, the Lwala Community Alliance Advisory Board (Kenya), and the Tennessee Global Health Coalition Board.

Her honors include the CUGH Velji Global Health Award for Teaching Excellence (2021), the Margaret Cuninggim Women's Center Mentoring Award (2022) and the Denis M. O'Day Award for team-implemented curricular reform (2026). She was inducted into the VUSM Academy of Excellence in Education in 2017 and is now its Director-Elect.

Dr. Martin holds a B.A. in English from Vanderbilt, an M.Ed. in International Education Policy from Peabody College and a Ph.D. in Public Administration from Tennessee State University. She was a Fulbright Scholar in Japan and spent three years in Vanderbilt's Global Education Office prior to joining VIGH. Earlier, she was an Emmy Award-winning journalist at CNN for seven years and spent four years in the Czech Republic teaching and managing an EU-directed parliamentary internship program.