Professor Martin is a Professor of Rehabilitation and Director of the Centre for Rehabilitation Sciences. He graduated from the University of Ulster in 1988 with a BSc (Hons) Physiotherapy. He was awarded his DPhil from the University of Ulster in 1993 and received an MSc Applied Statistics from Napier University in 2000.

Before coming to Teesside in 2006 he was a Principal Research Fellow in the Centre for Health and Social Care Research at Sheffield Hallam University. Before that, Professor Martin was a Director of the Scottish Network for Chronic Pain Research and Award Coordinator of the MSc Pain at Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh.

Professor Martin is an experienced supervisor of postgraduate degrees including eight PhD completions in the area of pain and disability. He is also Vice chair of the Pain and Older People Special Interest Group of the British Pain Society and is Section Editor in Rehabilitation for the Journal of Pain Management. He holds membership of the International Association for the Study of Pain, the British Pain Society, the Physiotherapy Pain Association, and was previously Chair of the Scientific Panel of the Charitable Trust of the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy.

Professor Martin is also Chair of Pain Association Scotland, a not-for-profit organisation that provides training and support of self-managing of chronic pain.

Professor Martin’s research interests lie in assessing and managing the impact of pain and disability, in which he has published widely and led or collaborated on many projects. These include exploring the experiences of people with chronic pain for the development of the chronic pain module for the DIPEx website, and the development of a community-based management of chronic pain with Pain Association Scotland.

His work includes pain and older people, the application of digital technology to augment rehabilitation, and the use of footwear in rehabilitation. His projects have received around £2m funding from bodies including the Research for Patient Benefit Programme, the ESRC, the National Lotteries Charities Board, the Chief Scientist Office in Scotland, the Health Foundation, the Physiotherapy Research Foundation and the British Geriatrics Society.