Dr. Martin is a Medical Professor at the Sophie Davis School of Biomedical Education, the medical school of the City College of the City University of New York and an internationally-recognized neuroscience researcher. He is also the founder of the Neural Development and Repair Research Cluster—a group of 9 scientists devoted to research in the field of recovery of function after brain injury—that is housed in the City College of New York Center for Discovery and Innovation.

Dr. Martin’s laboratory studies the brain and spinal cord neural circuits for movement; especially development of these circuits and how they respond to injury. His research is devoted to finding ways to improve function in people with mobility impairments, through advancing novel treatments. An important focus of his research program is to investigate the mechanisms of injury underlying hemiplegic cerebral palsy. His research is funded by the National Institutes of Health (of the USA; NIH), as well as private foundations focused on brain and spinal cord repair. He has over 100 peer-reviewed scientific publications and book chapters in his field. In addition to his research program, he has written a widely-used textbook on human brain anatomy that has been translated into four foreign languages.

Outside of his academic life at CCNY/CUNY, he is a member of an NIH panel of scientists that reviews grant applications pertaining to mobility impairments due to spinal cord and brain injury. He is also part of a neuroscience outreach program for Africa—sponsored by the US National Academy of Sciences, Society of Neuroscience (of the USA), and the International Brain Research Organization—that organizes yearly workshops throughout the African continent. The workshop targets young faculty in Medical and Allied Health Schools to improve the quality of Neuroscience education.