Martha Highsmith

Martha Highsmith is the senior advisor to the president and lecturer in Divinity at Yale University, providing counsel and support to the president and other officers and senior leaders on university goals, major initiatives, and institutional planning and strategy. She currently serves as acting chief communications officer of the university. She is also responsible for crisis management and emergency planning and has administrative oversight for the Office of Public Affairs and Communications. She came to Yale in 1994 and, prior to her current role, served as Associate Vice President of the University. Martha received her doctorate from Harvard and has undergraduate and master’s degrees from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She is a 1995 graduate, magna cum laude, of the Yale Divinity School, and she is an ordained Presbyterian minister. Prior to coming to Yale, she held positions in state government, including chief of staff for the Connecticut Department of Economic Development and assistant commissioner in the Department of Higher Education.