Dr. Susanne P. Martin Herz is a developmental-behavioral pediatrician, a specialist in evaluating and caring for infants and children when concerns for their development or behavior arise. She has expertise in assessing children who may have developmental delay, disruptive behaviors or autism spectrum disorder. She serves as associate clinical director of the Division of Developmental Medicine in the UCSF Department of Pediatrics, which provides clinical services at UCSF Benioff Children's Hospitals in San Francisco and Oakland, as well as other Bay Area locations.
Broadly, subjects of Martin Herz's research include the epidemiology of developmental disability (factors that determine its presence or absence), neurodevelopmental assessment, prevention of brain injury in newborns, and early childhood development in low-income environments or resource-limited communities. Her current research includes performing quality improvement projects for developmental services at UCSF Benioff Children's Hospitals; validating tools used in neurodevelopmental assessment of at-risk infants in Harare, Zimbabwe; assessing long-term growth and neurodevelopment of preterm infants in a rural part of southwest Kenya (a project that is part of the East Africa Preterm Birth Initiative); studying the neurodevelopmental impact of improved neonatal resuscitation techniques for infants in Harare who don't cry at birth; and conducting a qualitative study of the experience of caregivers in Harare who are parenting a child with developmental disability. From 2016 to 2020, she was a consultant to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation on neurodevelopmental strategy and programs.
Martin Herz earned her medical degree at Stanford University. She completed the first two years of her residency in pediatrics at Seattle Children's Hospital and the third year at UCSF. She completed a fellowship in developmental-behavioral pediatrics at Seattle Children's, as well as a clinical fellowship in pediatric bioethics at the hospital's Treuman Katz Center for Pediatric Bioethics. She also earned a doctorate in psychology at the University of Washington.
Martin Herz serves on advisory committees on nurturing care and early childhood development for the World Health Organization and the American Academy of Pediatrics, among other organizations. She has published and presented numerous research papers in her field. She is an affiliate faculty member of the UCSF Institute for Global Health Sciences and UCSF Program in Bioethics.
