Dr. Martha Herbert earned her medical degree at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, and then trained in Pediatrics at Cornell-New York Hospital and in Neurology, Child Neurology and neurodevelopmental disorders at the Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School where as a faculty member she founded the collaborative multidisciplinary TRANSCEND Research Program (Treatment Research and Neuroscience Evaluation of Neurodevelopmental Disorders), based in the Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, which takes a whole-body-brain approach to challenged brain development. She is the author of many scientific papers.

For eight years (six as vice-chair) she served on the Board of Directors of the Council for Responsible Genetics, the world’s first genetic engineering watchdog group. Prior to her medical training she obtained a doctoral degree at the University of California, Santa Cruz, studying evolution and development of learning processes in biology and culture in the History of Consciousness program, and then did postdoctoral work in the philosophy and history of science.

Her background in pediatric neurology, evolutionary biology, environmental studies, social theory and history of science has oriented her toward systems biology, brain connectivity and dynamism, and brain-body-planet interrelationships. For Dr. Herbert, these interests interweave with and are in part inspired by her decades of direct experience with and training in a wide range of mind-brain-body-movement-somato-emotional practice modalities.

Dr. Herbert is the founder and present Executive Director of the Higher Synthesis Foundation, whose mission is to study and characterize common features of successful regenerative approaches in health, agriculture, and ecosystems restoration. The foundation has engaged in, consulted on research design for and supported projects documenting impacts of complex system strategies for restoring or upgrading integrity to compromised systems, and is presently engaged in developing an on-the-ground rural center to pursue its educational and scientific activities.

She is the author of the public-oriented Harvard Health Publications book, The Autism Revolution: Whole Body Strategies for Making Life All It Can Be, as well as many scientific papers.