Laura E. Martin

Laura E. Martin, PhD, is a Professor in the Department of Population Health at the University of Kansas Medical Center (KUMC) and serves as the Executive Associate Director at Hoglund Biomedical Imaging Center. Her academic journey began with undergraduate training in psychology and dance at the University of Kansas, followed by a Ph.D. in psychology with an emphasis in cognitive neuroscience from Rice University, and a postdoctoral fellowship at KUMC.

Dr. Martin is a cognitive neuroscientist whose research focuses on applying neuroimaging methods to understand health behaviors, particularly addictive behaviors such as smoking and eating. Her work examines self-regulation, impulsivity, reward processing, and decision making through functional neuroimaging techniques. As Executive Associate Director at Hoglund Biomedical Imaging Center, she provides technical expertise to investigators and trainees interested in incorporating neuroimaging into their research programs. Her collaborations span diverse areas including aging, depression, obesity, gambling, social neuroscience, decision-making, resting state fMRI, and neuroeconomics.

Her research is currently funded by the National Institutes of Health, with a recent focus on using guided episodic future thinking to increase physical activity adherence and promote healthy brain aging among mid-life adults. Dr. Martin is passionate about mentoring students at all levels and sharing her enthusiasm for research methodology, critical evaluation of research, and appropriate method selection for specific research questions.

• Current research emphasizes health neuroscience examining how health behaviors change the brain and how the brain can be changed to change health behaviors
• Leads and contributes to team science approaches addressing complex research questions
• Helps conceptualize research projects and brings specialized data collection and analytic tools to interdisciplinary teams

Dr. Martin has published extensively in high-impact journals, with recent work focusing on dementia prevention, neuroimaging methodology, eating disorders, addiction research, and physical activity interventions. Her approach combines cognitive neuroscience with practical applications for improving health behaviors across the lifespan.

As an educator and mentor, Dr. Martin works with trainees from high school to faculty level, emphasizing the integration of neuroimaging research with broader research questions and training students in research methodology and critical thinking.