Margaret A. Martin, MPH '93, DrPH '98

Margaret A. Martin, DrPH, is a writer, speaker, advocate, and Director of both the D’Addario Foundation and Los Angeles City College Foundation. She continues to write, speak, and lead research that positively impacts young peoples’ lives.

In 2001, Dr. Martin founded the Harmony Project to help transform high-crime Los Angeles neighborhoods by providing intensive music-based mentoring to children with few resources. Since its founding, the organization has provided 40,000 children with instruments, tuition-free music lessons, ensemble participation, and mentorship from early childhood through high school graduation. Students participated for an average of more than seven years, playing in bands and orchestras for four to 10 hours each week throughout the year while improving their academic achievement and emotional well-being.

Randomized controlled research conducted in Los Angeles by neuroscientists from Northwestern University’s Brainvolts Lab found that participating students demonstrated significant improvements in how precisely their brains processed sound, helping participants achieve grade-level reading by third grade. In addition to the initial Harmony Project in Los Angeles, independent Harmony Project programs now serve children and young people throughout the country.

Dr. Martin and Harmony Project have received multiple national and international awards. In 2011, President Barack Obama awarded Dr. Martin the Presidential Citizens Medal. Her work has also been featured by NBC, CBS, NPR, PBS NewsHour, Voice of America (VOA), the BBC, The Wall Street Journal, Time, The Associated Press (AP), and other media outlets.

Dr. Martin retired from Harmony Project Los Angeles in 2020. She is also a published author, illustrator, produced playwright, composer, and lyricist.

Dr. Martin earned her Master of Public Health in Community Health Sciences in 1993 and Doctor of Public Health in Community Health Sciences in 1998, both from the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.

In 2026, Dr. Martin was inducted into the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health Hall of Fame and received the Lester Breslow Lifetime Achievement Award.