Marsha Griffin, M.D., is Professor of Pediatrics and Founder of the Community for Children program at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley School of Medicine (UTRGV). She completed her M.D. degree at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (UTHSCSA) in 2003, followed by pediatric residency at Texas Children’s Hospital and UTHSCSA. She is a member of the Executive Committee of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Council on Immigrant Child and Family Health, co-authored the AAP Policy Statement “Detention of Immigrant Children,” and is Chair of the AAP Border Strategy Team. Dr. Griffin has spent the last ten years writing and speaking both nationally and internationally about her concerns for the trauma inflicted on immigrant children on the border.

She served as Medical Director of the Humanitarian Care Respite Clinic in McAllen, Texas, where she initiated a partnership between Stanford School of Medicine, Baylor/Texas Children’s Hospital, Migrant Clinician Network and UTRGV School of Medicine to form the Humanitarian Care Network for Asylum-Seeking Families creating a network of clinics and academic medical institutions across the nation caring for newly migrated children and families. She also co-founded Medical Review for Immigrants, which is an organization of volunteer physicians working with immigration attorneys to obtain the release of detainees with chronic medical conditions from ICE detention centers and get them immediate medical care upon release. In 2019, Dr. Griffin was named Health Policy Hero by the National Center on Health Policy in Washington, DC. In 2018, she received one of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ highest awards, the Clifford G. Grulee Award, for her advocacy for all children and for her outstanding service to the American Academy of Pediatrics.