Mudd-Martin Elected as Co-Chair of NCATS Collaboration & Engagement Enterprise Committee
LEXINGTON, Ky. (March 5, 2026) – Gia Mudd-Martin, PhD, MPH, RN, has been elected to serve as co-chair of the Collaboration & Engagement Enterprise Committee of the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences.
At UK, Mudd-Martin, a professor in the College of Nursing, serves as director of Community Engagement and Research for the Center for Clinical and Translational Science, which is funded by NCATS. Nominated by voting members from across the country, she has represented the UK CCTS on the committee she now leads since 2017.
The mission of the Collaboration & Engagement Committee is to work with researchers, stakeholders and communities across the national Clinical and Translational Science Award Consortium to promote team science that enhances health for all and improve community-engaged research, dissemination and implementation.
Guided by principles of community-based participatory research, Mudd-Martin has a long history of building reciprocal relationships with communities to address their specific health needs. Her research focuses on the development and testing of sustainable cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes risk reduction interventions that are designed in partnership with Latino/Latina, Appalachian, and rural communities. She has also served as the UK principal investigator of a National Institutes of Health grant supporting the All of Us program, and of a program funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to collaborate with communities on increasing vaccine awareness and uptake among adults.
Mudd-Martin had a pivotal role in establishing the Appalachian Translational Research Network as a 501c3, for which she continues to serve as a member of the Executive Leadership Committee. She has received multiple awards in recognition of her work including induction in 2017 as a Fellow of the American Heart Association and in 2022 as a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing.
“My role in the NCATS Collaboration & Engagement Committee reflects my commitment and the commitment of our UK CCTS Community Engagement and Research core to engage with communities to improve health outcomes,” Mudd-Martin said. “I am grateful for this opportunity to lead efforts to shape strategic priorities and implement initiatives that strengthen collaboration and engagement with stakeholders and communities served by the CTSA Consortium in collaboration with my co-chair Elisabeth Martinez de la Rosa and lead team members Sarah Wiehe, Tiffany Haynes, Deshauna Jones, Tricia Piechoski and Heather Kitzman.”
Media Contact: Mallory Profeta, mallory.profeta@uky.edu
