Linda C. Martin serves as executive vice president for the University of Tennessee System, a role she assumed in July 2025. As a member of the executive leadership team reporting to the president, she provides strategic oversight for key systemwide initiatives, advises on organizational goals and serves as a liaison to the UT Board of Trustees. She fosters engagement with stakeholders across the state, ensuring alignment of the UT System’s mission and strategic priorities with the board’s vision.
Martin first joined the UT System in November 2017 as vice president for academic affairs and student success. In 2021, she also served as interim senior vice chancellor and senior vice president of the UT Institute of Agriculture, and from 2022 to 2025, she was chancellor of UT Southern. Under her direction, UT Southern strengthened academic offerings, grew enrollment, expanded student success initiatives and increased its impact in southern middle Tennessee.
Before joining UT, Martin spent a decade at The Ohio State University as associate dean and director of academic affairs in the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences. While at Ohio State, she held the Sanford G. Price and Isabelle P. Barbee Chair in Teaching, Learning and Advising and later was appointed director of the university’s Second-Year Transformational Experience Program. Earlier in her career, she served as assistant dean for academic programs in the College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources at Oklahoma State University, following 15 years of teaching and advising at Kansas State University.
Martin earned a bachelor’s degree in animal science from The Ohio State University, a master’s degree in animal breeding and genetics from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, and a doctorate in the same field from Colorado State University.
Her career achievements include more than 25 college, regional and national awards for teaching, advising and leadership excellence. She is a graduate of Leadership Tennessee, a Food Systems Leadership Institute Fellow and the first woman inducted into The Ohio State University Animal Science Hall of Fame.
