Kelsey C. Martin, M.D., Ph.D.

Kelsey C. Martin is executive vice president of the Simons Foundation’s Autism and Neuroscience division. She received her A.B. in English Literature and Language from Harvard University in 1979 and then served for two and a half years as a public health volunteer with the Peace Corps in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo). She earned her M.D. and her Ph.D. in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry from Yale University, working with Ari Helenius, and completed postdoctoral training in neuroscience with Eric Kandel at Columbia University.

She joined the faculty of UCLA in the Departments of Psychiatry and Biological Chemistry in 1999, where she currently is an Emeritus Professor on Active Recall. Martin served as co-director of the UCLA-Caltech Medical Scientist Training Program from 2005-2013, as Chair of the Department of Biological Chemistry from 2010 to 2015, and as Dean of the David Geffen School of Medicine from 2015 to 2021.

Martin’s research program investigates the cell and molecular biology of learning and memory, with a focus on the spatial and temporal regulation of gene expression during neuronal plasticity. Her laboratory has discovered signaling pathways that carry information from synapses to the nucleus to regulate transcription and has identified roles for local translation at synapses during learning-related plasticity.

• Neumann S, Achiro JM, Watanabe M, Bonnano SL, Deng W, Wohlschlegel JA, Martin KC, Cytoplasmic and nuclear protein interaction networks of the synapto-nuclear messenger CRTC1 in neurons reveal cooperative chromatin binding between CREB1 and CRTC1, MEF2C and RFX3. BioRxiv 2025 doi: 10.1101/2025.07.02.662820
• Achiro JM, Tao Y, Gao F, Lin CH, Watanabe M, Neumann S, Coppola G, Black DL, Martin KC, Aging differentially alters the transcriptome and landscape of chromatin accessibility in the male and female mouse hippocampus. Front Mol Neuroscie. 2024; 17:1334862. Doi:10.3389
• Bonheur M, Swartz KJ, Metcalf M, Wen X, Zhukovskaya A, Mehta, A, Connors, KE, Barasch JG, Jamieson AR, Martin KC, Axel R , Hattori D, A rapid and bidirectional reporter of neural activity reveals neural correlates of social behaviors in Drosophila. Nat Neuro. 2023; 26:1295-1307
• Herbst WA, Deng W, Wohlschlegel, JA, Achiro JM, Martin KC. Neuronal activity regulates the nuclear proteome to promote activity-dependent transcription. J Cell Bio. 2021; 220 (12):e202103087.
• Holt CE, Martin KC, Schuman EM. Local translation in neurons: visualization and function. Nat Structr Mol Biol. 2019; 26:557-566.
• Merkurjev D, Hong WT, Iida K, Oomoto I, Goldie BJ, Yamaguti H, Ohara T, Kawaguchi S, Hirano T, Martin KC, Pellegrini M, Wang DO. Synaptic N⁶-methyladenosine (m⁶A) epitranscriptome reveals functional partitioning of localized transcripts. Nat Neurosci. 2018; 21: 1004-1014.
• Vuong CK, Wei W, Lee JA, Lin CH, Damianov A, de la Torre-Ubieta L, Halabi R, Otis KO, Martin KC, O’Dell TJ, Black DL. Rbfox1 Regulates Synaptic Transmission through the Inhibitory Neuron-Specific vSNARE Vamp1. Neuron. 2018; 98: 127-141.e7.
• Van Driesche SJ, Martin KC. New frontiers in RNA transport and local translation in neurons. Dev Neurobiol. 2018; 78: 331-339.
• Octeau JC, Chai H, Jiang R, Bonanno SL, Martin KC, Khakh BS. An Optical Neuron-Astrocyte Proximity Assay at Synaptic Distance Scales. Neuron. 2018; 98: 49-66.e9
• Martin KC. Tips for Young Scientists on the Junior Faculty/Independent Investigator Job Search. Neuron. 2017; 93: 731-736
• Gao J, Marosi M, Choi J, Achiro JM, Kim S, Li S, Otis K, Martin KC, Portera-Cailliau C, Tontonoz P. The E3 ubiquitin ligase IDOL regulates synaptic ApoER2 levels and is important for plasticity and learning. Elife. 2017; 6: e29178
• Chen PB, Kawaguchi R, Blum C, Achiro JM, Coppola G, O’Dell TJ, Martin KC. Mapping Gene Expression in Excitatory Neurons during Hippocampal Late-Phase Long-Term Potentiation. Front Mol Neurosci. 2017; 10: 39