Martin studied Latin American Archaeology and Ethnography at Leiden University. He obtained his PhD at Leiden in 2016, with the dissertation From Ollamaliztli to Pelota Mixteca and beyond : the role of globalization in the historical development of an indigenous Mexican ballgame. Before coming to Leiden University he spent ten years as a curator for the Middle and South American collections of the Dutch National Museum of World Cultures (NMWC). At the NMWC he curated numerous exhibitions, including A World of Feathers (NME Leiden 2016, Afrikamuseum 2017, Museum of World Cultures Göteborg 2018, Ethnographic Museum Stockholm 2018), The Afterlives of Slavery (Tropenmuseum, 2017-2020), and Aztecs (Linden-Museum Stuttgart 2019, Weltmuseum Wien 2020, NME Leiden 2021).
Currently, Martin’s research focuses on the international art market for pre-Columbian Mesoamerican pieces in the twentieth century, and the use and cultural meaning of turquoise in pre-Colonial Mesoamerica. For this research, he held fellowships at Harvard University’s Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection (Summer Fellowship, 2014), Yale University /IPCH (Short-Term Post-Doctoral Fellow, 2017), and the Getty Research Institute (Invited Guest Research 2020, postponed because of COVID-19). Parts of his research were financed by a European Commission CHARISMA grant (2011) and a European Commission IPERION-CH grant (2018).
