Martha Herbert PhD, MD

Dr. Martha Herbert is a pediatric neurologist and research neuroscientist at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, an affiliate of the Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging and director of the TRANSCEND Research Program which uses multi-modal brain imaging and bio-sampling in a whole body approach to studying autism spectrum disorders in the brain and in whole body/brain development of high-risk infants, and in seeking commonalities in brain and health issues between autism and other common chronic brain and systemic illnesses.

Dr. Herbert earned her medical degree at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, and then trained in pediatrics at Cornell University Medical Center and in neurology and child neurology at the Massachusetts General Hospital, where she has remained. Her background in pediatric neurology, evolutionary biology and history of science has oriented her toward systems biology, brain connectivity, brain plasticity, and brain-body interrelationships. Her imaging research focuses upon brain biomarker profiling that can link physiological (including metabolism and perfusion) with signaling metrics to create an integrative profile of multiscale brain function.