Martine J. RoBards

Born in Louisville, Kentucky

Martine June RoBards was born on April 16, 1946, in Louisville, Kentucky. Her lifelong fascination with the human mind would begin early and never wane.

Doctoral Training & Neuroscience Research

Earned dual doctorates in Psychobiology and Psychology from Florida State University, followed by post-doctoral fellowships at the University of Virginia School of Medicine and Brown University School of Medicine, followed by a faculty appointment at UC Irvine — grounding a visionary in the most rigorous neuroscience of her era. During this period she produced more than twenty peer-reviewed publications, conducted NIH- and NSF-funded research, and earned Outstanding Faculty Member recognition three consecutive years at UC Irvine. Her work on olfactory systems and neuroanatomical tracing methods during these post-doctoral years laid the scientific foundation for the landmark 1981 book that would follow.

A Seminal Work in Neuroscience

During her years at the University of Virginia School of Medicine and UC Irvine, Martine co-edited Neuroanatomical Tract-Tracing Methods (Plenum Press, 1981) with Dr. Lennart Heimer — a 567-page volume that became a foundational reference in the field. The book consolidated the techniques researchers use to map neural pathways in the brain, and has been cited continuously in neuroscience literature for over four decades. Cross-referencing on PubMed reveals it remains an active citation in current neuroanatomy research, a testament to the rigor and lasting relevance of her early scientific work.

The Human Equation, Ltd.

Founded in Laguna Beach, CA. A revolutionary "psych shop" in a shopping mall — radically accessible psychology featuring computer-assisted personality screening, counseling, workshops, and holistic services. Featured in Inc. Magazine as a pioneering concept.

National Media Recognition

Featured in Inc. Magazine, Psychology Today, and Training Magazine, as well as ABC and CNN television news — establishing her as a national voice in accessible mental health and organizational psychology.

The Insight Series & What Matters

Published her landmark series on personality theory through The Leadership Dimension imprint — applying Jungian and Keirsey frameworks in an unprecedented, warmly human voice. The series included Insight I, Insight II, and the capstone Insight III: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Becoming a Type Temperament Wizard in the Organization — a practitioner’s deep dive into applying temperament theory within organizational life. Alongside the books, she also developed What Matters, a values-clarification board game designed to help individuals and teams identify their core priorities — the philosophical companion to The Insight Game.

The Leadership Dimension

Founded as an extension of The Human Equation — bringing personality-type consulting to Fortune 500 companies, executive retreats, and organizational development across the U.S. and Australia.

The Insight Game™ Is Born

Martine created The Insight Game — a board game sold by mail order to psychologists, therapists, guidance counselors, and Fortune 500 training departments. A breakthrough tool for team-building, customer service, and executive development.

Corporate America & Executive Retreats

The Insight Game reached corporate boardrooms across the country — from technology firms in Silicon Valley to the Ritz-Carlton’s leadership programs. Executive retreats in La Jolla, Carmel, Big Sur, Hawaii, and Queensland, Australia brought her methods to the highest levels of American and international business leadership.

Comprehensive Personality Profiles

Published her comprehensive series of 16-type personality profiles — copyrighted resources that became reference standards for practitioners integrating Myers-Briggs and Keirsey frameworks.

The Call That Broke the Case — Primetime Live

Southern California's workers' compensation system had quietly become one of the most corrupt enterprises in the country. Organized crime rings were running sham clinics — recruiting uninjured workers, fabricating diagnoses, and billing insurers for treatments that never happened. One insider would later confess on camera to a half-billion dollars in fraud. But before any of that was exposed, someone had to see it first.

That someone was Martine. Working as a neuropsychologist inside these practices, she was the one who recognized the scale and pattern of the fraud from the inside. And when she did, she picked up the phone and called Diane Sawyer — her classmate from Seneca High School in Louisville, Kentucky, where both women had come of age. That call set everything in motion.

ABC's Primetime Live built their entire investigation around what Martine had uncovered. She went in wired — hidden camera, hidden microphone — helping document the fraud that she had already identified. The resulting broadcast brought the crisis to a national audience. Her role in it, from the first phone call to the undercover work, was kept strictly confidential — a condition of the investigation, and a measure of the personal risk she had taken to do what was right.

Champion of Louisville's Railroad Workers

Having returned to her hometown of Louisville, Kentucky, Martine undertook one of the most consequential chapters of her career: using her dual expertise in neuropsychology and neuroscience to advocate for railroad workers suffering from toxic encephalopathy — permanent brain damage caused by decades of exposure to chlorinated solvents at CSX's South Louisville rail yards.

She began with a single patient and, recognizing a pattern, built a pioneering research study — evaluating workers who labored at the same shops, under the same conditions, with the same chemical exposures — and found consistent neuropsychological deficits across the group. Her findings became central evidence in multiple FELA (Federal Employers' Liability Act) trials, and her testimony was cited in landmark Kentucky Supreme Court decisions including Moody v. CSX Transportation and Burton v. CSX Transportation. CSX mounted legal challenges to exclude her, arguing jurisdictional questions about her qualifications — and lost. Her work helped secure millions of dollars in verdicts for workers who had been silenced, overlooked, and harmed.

Publishing her research in the Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology and presenting at the International Neuropsychological Society, she gave scientific legitimacy to a community of injured workers who had nowhere else to turn. It was, in every sense, the full arc of her life's work: neuroscience, psychology, and a fierce belief that people — all people — deserved to be understood and protected.

InsightSystem.com & Digital Expansion

Moved The Insight Game online through InsightSystem.com, pioneering digital personality-type assessment at a time when few psychologists had grasped the internet's potential for democratizing psychological tools.

The Legacy Continues

Her son, Michael A. RoBards, LCSW, relaunches The Insight Game — digitally reimagined for a new generation, carrying forward the philosophy and spirit that Martine gave to the world.