Welcome to the Academy of Master Teachers

Cheyenne "Darlene" Martin, PhD, RN, FAAN
Professor 
Rebecca and Edwin Gale Professor
Department of SON Graduate Studies
School of Nursing

Dr. Cheyenne Martin is the Rebecca and Edwin Gale Distinguished Professor of Ethics at the University of Texas Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences and School of Nursing, and an Associate Faculty at the Institute for Bioethics and Health Humanities, Galveston, Texas. She was previously a faculty at the University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Martin received her PhD in Medical Ethics and Public Policy from the University of Texas School of Public Health in Houston. She was among the first nursing faculty in the U.S to receive the Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. Fellowship in Bio-ethics, a program developed by the Kennedy and Shriver families in conjunction with Georgetown and Harvard universities to prepare medical and nursing faculty in the newly emerging field/of medical ethics. Dr. Martin later served as a member of the Kennedy Fellow Selection committee chaired by Mrs. Eunice Kennedy Shriver. She is an elected Fellow in the American Academy of Nursing. 

During the past several decades, Dr. Martin has directed a series of international studies which examined nurses' and physicians' participation in resistance activities in France, Poland, Italy, Belgium and other occupied countries during the Nazi era. This resistance research has been funded by the NIH grant from the National Library of Medicine, as well as grants from the Harris and Eliza Kempner Fund, the Rebecca Sealy Foundation, and the Rebecca and Edwin Gale Professorship. She is currently expanding the research to examine roles and experiences of physicians and nurses in the current conflict in Ukraine. 

Dr. Martin has presented numerous research-based papers addressing roles of nurses and physicians in resistance activities during the Nazi era and other genocides to national international audiences. She is a former member of the Texas Commission and the Holocaust and Genocide Ethics Committee and a long-term member of the International Scholars Conference on the Holocaust. She is currently developing a photo exhibit entitled Medical Warriors in Resistance in France during the Nazi Era. She has also been actively involved as a Visiting Scholar at numerous Holocaust educational programs for the university faculty and high-school teachers. She was the recipient of a UTMB Living Legend Award in 2022.

Heather Stevenson-Lerner, MD, PhD, FCAP
Professor, Department of Pathology
Director of Liver and Transplantation Pathology
Associate Director, Pathology Residency Program
Associate Director, NIH/NCATS KL2 Scholars Program I.
Emil Carroll, MD Professorship in Pathology Ike and Freida Lerner Professorship in Pathology

Dr. Heather Stevenson-Lerner is a Tenured Professor in the Department of Pathology, Division of Surgical Pathology at the University of Texas Medical Branch. Her clinical focus includes liver and transplantation pathology. Prior to becoming faculty at UTMB in 2014, she completed a fellowship in the Transplant Pathology Division at the University of Pittsburg Medical Center. Dr. Stevenson-Lerner leads UTMB's Liver Diseases Diagnostics Management Team, which is well attended by hepatologist, transplant coordinators, fellows, and residents.

Dr. Stevenson-Lerner earned her BS from Colorado State University and worked at the Center of Disease Control and Prevention prior to coming to UTMB for her training in the combined MD/PhD program. She completed residency training at UTMB in 2013 and is a board-certified in Anatomic and Clinical Pathology.

Dr. Stevenson-Lerner received a University of Texas Rising STARs award and is past-chair of the Executive Committee for Medical School Admissions. She was a past recipient of a career development award from the Institute for Translational Sciences' KLS (ITS Scholars) program and is now the Associate Director of the program. Her work has been the topic of several newspaper articles, including in CAP Today and AASLD News.