Martin is marine geophysicist working as a senior staff scientist at Ocean Networks Canada at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada. His expertise is in the imaging of subsurface structures, gas hydrates, underwater mass movements as well as subduction zone processes.
Martin did his undergraduate studies in physics and astronomy in Hamburg, Germany. He then specialized in geophysical methods and completed an M.Sc. in Exploration Geophysics at Leeds University, UK with a dissertation on seismic attenuation as an indicator for hydrocarbons in 1995. Martin then worked as a research assistant at Leeds University until 1997, after which he began his Ph.D. studies at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. He earned his Ph.D. in 2002, writing his thesis on lithospheric structures and deformation of the continental collision zone of New Zealand's South Island.
After earning his Ph.D., Martin then moved to Canada and spent two years as a research fellow at the University of Victoria where he worked on subduction zone processes and gas hydrates of the Cascadia margin off Vancouver Island. Between 2004 and 2010 he worked as a research scientist at IFM-GEOMAR in Kiel, Germany, where he conducted research on subduction zone processes off south-central Chile and the Hikurangi-Kermadec zone off New Zealand and also on correlating seismic activity and gas discharge of Nicaraguan volcanoes.
In 2010 Martin moved back to Canada to become a research associate at the University of Victoria, analyzing structures and seismology of the Cascadia margin. Martin joined Ocean Networks Canada in April 2011, supporting research projects on gas hydrates, ocean floor fluid dynamics and ocean basalt carbon sequestration, and assisting with support of seismology and tectonics-related research.