Martin’s background is in development studies, first at the University of Sussex and later at the University of Manchester where he completed his Ph.D. on the reform of burley tobacco production and marketing in Malawi. Martin was employed at IOB from 2009 to 2012 after working at the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), London, where he edited the Chronic Poverty Report 2008/09 . He remains affiliated to IOB as a Research Associate. 

Martin now works as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management, University of Copenhagen. His  research focuses on three issues: agriculture, climate change and value chains.  For example, recent work has discussed the role of impact evaluation in assessing climate interventions, and how contract farming can bring benefits to both farms and firms within agricultural commodity chains. He also has an interest in mixed methods, as illustrated in this discussion of the extent to which qualitative methods can be utilised within randomized experiments.

Evaluations of his teaching are available here.