Martin received a veterinary degree and a doctorate in Veterinary Medicine from the Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich, and a Ph.D. in Food Science from Cornell, where he currently is the Gellert Family Professor of Food Safety. His research interests focus on farm-to-table microbial food quality and food safety and the application of molecular tools to study the transmission of foodborne pathogens and spoilage organisms. His team has published 400 peer reviewed publications, which have been cited >10,000 times. He and his team are regularly asked to help industry with a range of microbial food safety and quality challenges. He received the Young Scholars award from the American Dairy Science Association in 2002, the Samuel Cate Prescott Award from Institute of Food Technologists’ in 2003, the International Life Science Institute North America Future Leaders Award in 2004, and the American Meat Institute Foundation Scientific Achievement Award in 2011. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), a fellow of the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT), a fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology (AAM), and a member of the International Academy of Food Science and Technology.