Dr. Valerie A. Martinez

Dr. Valerie A. Martinez

Higher Education

Dr. Valerie A. Martínez is a nationally recognized historian whose scholarship recovers the untold stories of Mexican Americans in the U.S., specifically Latinas.

As Associate Professor of History and Co-Chair of the Education Department at Our Lady of the Lake University, her honors include two National Endowment for the Humanities grants-including one for her project Embajadoras: Latina Servicewomen and Hemispheric Politics during World War II, the 2021 Moody Professorship, the 2024 Francine Fleming Endowed Award for Teaching Excellence, and selection to HACU’s ENLACE Mid-Level Leadership Program (2024-2025).

She holds a B.A. and M.A. from Texas Tech University and a Ph.D. from UT Austin, where her dissertation received the NACCS-Tejas Foco Award. She has presented at leading national organizations including the Organization of American Historians, the Western History Association, and College Board Prepárate, and has delivered invited lectures at numerous institutions including James Madison University and West Texas A&M University. Her published work appears with the University of Arizona Press and Communication and Democracy.

A fierce advocate for ethnic studies, Dr. Martínez chairs the NACCS-Tejas Foco PreK-12 Committee, is a Core Member of the Ethnic Studies Network of Texas, a member of SomosMAS and serves on the Hispanas Unidas board.