Rate My Professor Alexis Martinez

Alexis Martinez is an Associate Professor of Sociology in the Department of Sociology & Sexuality Studies at San Francisco State University, part of the College of Health & Social Sciences, where she joined the faculty in 2007. As a UCSF-trained medical sociologist, Dr. Martinez has a strong background in community-based research with structurally vulnerable and marginalized populations. Her scholarship integrates qualitative and quantitative methodologies to investigate the interplay of space, place, and spatial dynamics in health outcomes across the United States. Key areas of focus include opioid prescribing patterns, opioid overdose epidemics, and racial disparities within jail populations. She also examines the criminalization of drug use as a critical structural factor influencing the HIV risk environment for injection drug users. Before her tenure at San Francisco State University, Dr. Martinez participated in the Urban Health Study at the University of California, San Francisco, exploring connections between arrests, incarceration, and HIV risk among street-based injection drug users in San Francisco.