Our People

Martha Herbert, MD, PhD

Martha Herbert, MD, PhD

Martha Herbert, MD, PhD, is a pediatric neurologist, brain researcher, writer, speaker, and integrative systems thinker. She founded and directs the TRANSCEND Research Program at the Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging of Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School/MIT and is a Harvard Medical School assistant professor of neurology. In addition, she directs the Higher Synthesis Health clinic and practice-based research center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and is the author of the public-facing Harvard Health Publications book The Autism Revolution: Whole-Body Strategies for Making Life All It Can Be. She also works with the Documenting Hope project, serving as principal research investigator for its prospective documentation of recovery of children from chronic illnesses. Dr. Herbert received her medical degree from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and her neurology training at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Prior to her medical training, she received a PhD in the history of consciousness at the University of California, Santa Cruz, writing a systems-oriented dissertation on the evolution and development of learning processes.