Aileen Marty



Aileen Maria Marty is an infectious disease expert and a professor at the FIU Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine.

Early life and education
Born in Havana, Cuba, her family left Cuba following the Cuban Revolution of 1959 when she was four years old, moving first to Venezuela and then to the United States.

She joined the United States Navy. In 1982, while in the Navy, she graduated from the University of Miami School of Medicine. She was appointed to the Homeland Defense Committee in 2001 by Admiral James A. Zimble. She was in the Navy for 25 years, and retired in 2003.

Career
Marty has worked on infectious diseases, including Zika fever in Miami, Ebola, COVID-19,  and Mpox.

While in the Navy, she led training courses for civilians on weapons on how to respond to biological and chemical attacks, and studied old cases of anthrax at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology.

In the 2010s, Marty was recruited to join the board of World Patent Marketing, a company that was later found to have scammed inventors out of their payments. Marty said she had been told that she would be sent patent ideas to review. She never received any and returned the check she had received when she heard the company might be committing fraud. She commented, "I wish I had never heard of the company and I wish that my name were not in any way associated with it. I can't turn back time and not accept the offer to be on their board — believe me if I could, I would".

As of 2022, Marty is co-editor-in-chief of the journal One Health.

Honors and awards
In 2015, the Miami-Dade Parks and Recreation department honored Marty for her work on Ebola, malaria, and other diseases. In September 2021, singer Gloria Estefan nominated Marty for Good Morning America's "Inspiration List".