Martin joined Oxfam GB's Policy Research Team in 2009, and leads in developing the capacity of staff worldwide to undertake and commission high quality research to support Oxfam GB's campaigns, humanitarian responses, and development programmes.

Martin works with a growing network of regional and national research coordinators, and is responsible for research skills training, the provision of online resources (including research guidelines), fund-raising for research, and the development of links with the wider academic and NGO research communities. In 2011 he became a member of the expert panel for the social sciences (Main Panel C) in the Research Excellence Framework (REF 2014), the system for assessing the quality of research in UK higher education institutions.

Before joining Oxfam, Martin worked for more than 25 years as a development consultant for a variety of agencies and organisations, including the Natural Resources Institute (1994-2003) in the Overseas Development Administration (now DFID) and then University of Greenwich. He has also been an Affiliated Lecturer in the Department of Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge (2004-10), and Research Fellow in the School of African and Asian Studies in the University of Sussex (1992-94). He holds an MA and PhD from the University of Cambridge, and has lived in both Tanzania and Kenya.