Octavio N. Martinez Jr., M.D., MPH

Octavio N. Martinez, Jr., M.D., MPH, MBA, is a professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. He is also the fifth executive director to lead the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health since its creation in 1940.

The foundation’s grants and programs support mental health services, research, policy analysis and public education projects in Texas. The Hogg Foundation is affiliated with the University’s Steve Hicks School of Social Work, where Martinez is a clinical professor. He is also a faculty affiliate with the Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice in the School of Law and an adjunct professor at UT Health San Antonio Long School of Medicine’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences.

Martinez currently serves on the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine’s Health and Medicine Division’s Forum on Mental Health and Substance Use Disorders. He formerly served on NASEM HMD’s Standing Committee on Medical and Public Health Research during large-scale emergency events, as well as on the Institute of Medicine’s Committee on the Governance and Financing of Graduate Medical Education (2014) and the Committee on the Mental Health Workforce for Geriatric Populations (2012). Martinez has also served on the National Advisory Committee on Rural Health and Human Services to the secretary of health.

Additionally, he is a member of the board of directors for Trust for America’s Health, a commissioner on the Texas Judicial Commission on Mental Health, executive committee member of the Texas Child Mental Health Care Consortium and a member of the Austin State Hospital Redesign Steering Committee.