Fall 2007 Issue
CDC Dedicates Street to Louise Martin, D.V.M, M.P.H.
In 1998, former CDC scientist Louise Martin, D.V.M., M.S., EIS ’85, was working with the Task Force for Child Survival and Development in Kenya. On August 7, she was visiting the American Embassy in Nairobi when a terrorist bomb exploded, ripping the embassy apart. Martin was among the 12 Americans and more than 200 Kenyans killed. Ten years later, on August 7, 2007, CDC officials dedicated a street on CDC’s main campus on Clifton Rd. in Atlanta in her honor. Louise Martin Drive, previously known as Michael Street, runs in front of Buildings 19 and 21 and intersects with CDC Parkway.
“The memory of Louise Martin continues to inspire us,” said Stephen B. Blount, M.D., M.P.H., director of CDC’s Coordinating Office for Global Health. “She was a committed public health practitioner, a dedicated veterinarian and a kind and compassionate person. Those who did not know her may, when they enter the CDC campus and see the sign, wonder who she was. Those of us who knew her will never forget.”
CDC Foundation Endowment Honors Martin’s Legacy
After her death in 1998, friends and colleagues worked with the CDC Foundation to establish the Louise Martin, D.V.M., M.S. EIS ’85 Memorial Scholarship Endowment. Reflecting Martin’s passion for helping children, the endowment began providing scholarshipsfor disadvantaged young women in Kenya to attend a national school in 2000.
In 2006, the endowment provided one-year scholarships for five girls ranging in age from 14 to 17 to attend the Starehe Girls’ Centre. One of the 2006 scholarship recipients, Caroline Mumbanu Mwendwa, is 15-years-old. Her father abandoned her family when she was very young, leaving her mother to support and care for Caroline, five of her brothers and sisters and her aging grandmother. Caroline would not be able to attend school without scholarship support.
“I study 13 subjects which are: English, Kiswahili, mathematics, French, chemistry, biology, physics, agriculture, home science, computers, Christian religious education, history and geography,” says Mwendwa. “I would like to be a neurosurgeon after I complete my studies.”
The fund remains open for additional gifts, which will increase the number of scholarships awarded. To learn more, contact Lorrin Woods at 404.523.3521 or lcwoods@cdc.gov. You can read additional letters from scholarship recipients online.