This past summer, our field lost Joe L. Martinez, Jr., Ph.D., an academic scientist in the areas of neuropharmacology and psychobiology, and a champion of diversity in science. Joe died of liver cancer. At the time of his passing, Joe was retired from a long and notable career with his longest tenure at the University of Texas, San Antonio (UTSA), where he was the Ewing Halsell Distinguished Chair in psychology and the founder and Director of the Cajal Neuroscience Research Center, currently known as the UTSA Neurosciences Institute. Joe was an ACNP emeritus member.

Joe’s research focused on the neurochemical and neurophysiological basis of learning and memory. In 1982, as a young professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, Joe set out to study the modulation of learning and memory by signals peripheral to the CNS, an area in which he trained under Jim McGaugh at UC Irvine. He soon initiated an additional research program on hippocampal mechanisms of learning, measuring synaptic plasticity in rodents in vivo during a time when reductive neuroscience was king, and only slice physiology experiments seemed highly valued. In both of these areas, he and his lab primarily focused on the role of endogenous opioid peptides, making new discoveries of their contribution to learning and memory mechanisms. For example, Joe and his then graduate student (and later colleague) Brian E. Derrick, found that the mossy fiber-CA3 hippocampal synapse in vivo expressed a mu opioid receptor-dependent Hebbian LTP, in contrast to prevailing thought. Joe and his lab members also began to investigate learning-induced gene expression changes in the 1980s, long before the availability of today’s sophisticated tools. It was a wonderful environment and I was lucky to be there for my graduate studies.

Joe remained deeply interested in hippocampal mechanisms of memory, including their gene expression dependencies, for the rest of his academic career. However, he would spend most of that in Texas; in 1995, Joe and his lab made an important move to UTSA, where Joe became increasingly involved in administrative roles that allowed him to shape the future of neuroscience at his new institution and impact the neuroscience training and education of scores of students, including a large UTSA Latino population. Indeed, those that knew Joe are not surprised to read of this other, equally prominent, aspect to his career: a deep interest in underrepresented groups in society in general, and in science in particular. Joe’s interest in this area was long-standing. Proud of his New Mexico heritage, he edited the first volume on Chicano Psychology (1984). Joe further broadened his efforts co-directing the American Psychological Association Diversity Program in Neuroscience. With the late James Townsel, he began the popular Summer Program in Neuroscience, Excellence and Success at the Marine Biological Laboratory at Wood’s Hole MA in 1989. Still going strong after 30 odd years, this NIMH-supported immersive summer neuroscience experience for underrepresented groups builds cohorts and communities of support, and has trained hundreds of scientists and educators in our field, many of whom carry on Joe’s legacy of mentorship and stewardship of the next generation of black and brown students.

During these years, Joe wrote Learning and Memory: A Biological View (1986, 1991) and Neurobiology of Learning and Memory (1998, 2007) both with Ray Kesner. Joe was recognized with the AAAS Mentor Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1994, was elected as Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in 1995, and received the Association for Neuroscience Departments and Programs Education Award in 2003. More importantly, through his lifetime of dedication and service to trainees, he won the lasting gratitude of many who received a critical boost through his personal efforts. In 2013 Joe moved to the University of Illinois at Chicago to become the chair of the department of psychology. He retired in 2016.

Joe was a gentle mentor, who could correct your course without a harsh word. He also enjoyed socializing, holding gatherings at his house where he would serve his homemade posole, while providing many opportunities for his trainees and colleagues to make life-long links that have enriched our lives. It’s only fitting that Joe, a scientist of memory, would leave such a strong memory trace in so very many friends, students, and colleagues: of his kindness, support, and belief in each of us. Joe’s path through life serves as an inspiring reminder to consider the memory traces each of us will leave behind. Our science is certainly important, but our individual and unique ability to nurture and educate future generations in our field may be our most important legacy.