Melissa A. Martinez, PhD

Professor and Coordinator of the Educational & Community Leadership Program
Department of Counseling, Leadership, Adult Education, and School Psychology
Texas State University

Dr. Melissa A. Martinez is Professor and Coordinator of the Ph.D. in Educational & Community Leadership program at Texas State University. In this role, she remains passionate about preparing and supporting educational leaders who are critically engaged practitioner scholars and mentoring early career faculty. Her research examines college access, college readiness, and a college-going culture for underserved and marginalized student communities, equity-oriented leadership preparation and Latinx leadership/leaders, and the experiences of faculty of color in academia. Dr. Martinez is co-editor of Latinas Leading Schools (2021) and Latino educational leadership: Serving Latino communities and preparing Latinx leaders across the P-20 pipeline and Latinas leading schools (2018). She has over 100 articles, book chapters, conference papers and presentations to her name. Dr. Martinez is active in the American Educational Research Association, University Council for Educational Administration, and serves as an Associate Editor of AERA Open and board member of other reputable journals in her field.