Profile: Carlos Martinez-Menendez, MD

Biography

Carlos Julian Martinez-Menendez joins our faculty at UTRGV’s Institute of Neuroscience as Assistant Professor of Neurology and as Interim Program Director for the newly starting Neurology Residency program.  

Dr. Martinez-Menendez graduated from medical school in 2018 at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, where he served as Student Director for the St. Vincent’s Clinic in Galveston and was elected to the Gold Humanism Honor Society. He subsequently completed a Neurology Residency at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston and a Behavioral Neurology & Neuropsychiatry fellowship at the same institution. During his fellowship, Dr. Martinez-Menendez helped oversee an infusion suite to administer the anti-amyloid treatment LEQEMBI (nemab) upon its FDA approval in 2023. He monitored patients for the TRAILBLAZER trials that led to FDA approval of the anti-amyloid treatment KISUNLA (donanemab) in 2024. He provided monthly didactic lectures to the UT Health Psychiatry residents, underscoring the interface between neurodegenerative disorders and geriatric psychiatry, as well as stressing the importance of clinical reasoning in adult-onset mental health disorders. Additionally, during his fellowship, he contributed two chapters to the textbook Neurobiology of Infectious Disease, released in November 2024.  

Dr. Martinez-Menendez believes his mission to be one of empowerment: empowerment of those patients living with cognitive and motor disabilities to live fulfilled lives, and empowerment of students and residents to develop into brilliant, competent physicians. He seeks to improve care for those with Alzheimer's and other neurodegenerative and cognitive illnesses throughout the course of the disease and improve access to comprehensive neurologic care for the vastly underserved region in which UTRGV draws its patient population. He will also be joining Dr. Gladys Maestre’s team at our new South Texas Alzheimer’s Research Center.