Rate My Professor Leslie Martin

Leslie Martin, Ph.D., is Professor of Psychology and Provost at La Sierra University, where she joined 28 years ago and has held key leadership roles including Chair of the Psychology Department, Chair of the Institutional Review Board, Faculty Senate Chair, and Chair of both the College and University Rank and Tenure Committees. She earned her Ph.D. in social and personality psychology from the University of California, Riverside in 1996, with most of her work focused in health psychology; an M.A. from the University of California, Riverside in 1993; and a B.A. from California State University, San Bernardino in 1990. In March 2026, following a nine-month national search, she was appointed Provost after serving as Interim Provost. She received the Haddad Faculty Award for Excellence in Advancing the Effectiveness of Faculty Governance at La Sierra University.

Dr. Martin's primary research interests are personality and psychosocial predictors of health and mortality risk, and clinician-patient interactions and their associations with satisfaction, adherence, and health outcomes. Her research areas include health psychology, social psychology, and personality. She has co-authored more than 50 articles in journals such as the British Journal of Health Psychology, Vaccine, Annals of Behavioral Medicine, and Health Psychology. Key publications include books 'The Longevity Project: Surprising Discoveries for Health and Long Life from the Landmark Eight-Decade Study' (2011, with Howard S. Friedman), 'Health Behavior Change and Treatment Adherence: Evidence-based Guidelines for Improving Healthcare' (2010, with Kelly B. Haskard-Zolnierek and M. Robin DiMatteo), and editor of 'The Oxford Handbook of Health Communication, Behavior Change, and Treatment Adherence' (2013, with M. Robin DiMatteo). Highly cited papers are 'The challenge of patient adherence' (2005, 1790 citations), 'Understanding the dimensions of anti-vaccination attitudes: The Vaccination Attitudes Examination (VAX) Scale' (2017, 491 citations), 'Personality and mortality risk across the lifespan: The importance of conscientiousness as a biopsychosocial attribute' (2007), and 'Perceptions of generic medication in the general population, doctors and pharmacists: A systematic review' (2015, 275 citations). Her scholarship has garnered over 8,654 citations and media interviews on Good Morning America and NPR following The Longevity Project. Dr. Martin has won numerous awards for her contributions to psychology.