O’Neill Institute Fall Conversation Series with Dr. Keith Martin
Universities: Leaders in Tackling Today’s Global Health Challenges
Keith Martin, MD
Executive Director, Consortium of Universities for Global Health (CUGH)
Dr. Martin is a physician who, since Sept. 2013, has served as the Executive Director of the Consortium of Universities for Global Health (CUGH) based in Washington, DC. The Consortium is a rapidly growing organization of over 120 academic institutions from around the world that harnesses a broad range of disciplines across institutions to address global health challenges. It is focused on improving health outcomes for the global poor. Between 1993-2011, Dr. Martin served as a Member of Parliament in Canada’s House of Commons representing a riding on Vancouver Island. During that time he held shadow ministerial portfolios in foreign affairs, international development, and health. He also served as Canada’s Parliamentary Secretary for Defense. His main areas of specialization and interest are global health, international development, foreign policy, conservation and the environment. He is particularly interested in building and retaining capacity in low income settings and scaling up proven interventions that will improve environmental and human security.
As a parliamentarian, Dr. Martin created CanadaAid.ca, an online platform to facilitate partnerships between universities, governments, multilateral institutions, NGOs, and the private sector in order to strengthen north-south and south-south partnerships, scale-up research findings in low-income communities, and bridge the knowledge-needs gap. He has also worked to mainstream sustainable conservation and environmental practices into international development initiatives to achieve positive outcomes for the environment and people. In 2006, Dr. Martin founded Canada’s first all-party Conservation Caucus in Parliament and developed the online conservation site, www.icforum.info.
Dr. Martin has been on numerous diplomatic missions to areas in crisis including Sudan, Zimbabwe, Mali, Niger, Sierra Leone, Colombia, and the Middle East. He served as a physician on the Mozambique border during that country’s civil war. He has travelled widely in Africa, visiting the continent 26 times.
Dr. Martin is the author of more than 150 editorial pieces published in Canada’s major newspapers and has appeared frequently as a political and social commentator on television and radio. From 1997-2000, he created and moderated the nationally syndicated, current affairs television program, Beyond Politics.