Martin Kaplan, Ph.D.
The founding director of The Norman Lear Center, Martin Kaplan has been Principal Investigator of Hollywood, Health & Society since its inception in 2001. He was associate dean of the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism for 10 years and holds the Norman Lear Chair in Entertainment, Media & Society. A Harvard summa cum laude in molecular biology, he has an M.A. in English from Cambridge University where he was a Marshall Scholar, and a doctorate from Stanford in modern thought and literature. He was Vice President Walter Mondale’s chief speechwriter and deputy national campaign manager of Mondale’s 1984 presidential bid. He was vice president of motion picture production at the Walt Disney Studios; as a screenwriter and producer, his credits include The Distinguished Gentleman, starring Eddie Murphy, and the screen adaptation of Michael Frayn’s play Noises Off, directed by Peter Bogdanovich.