Robert D. Martin

Robert D. Martin PhD
Martin in his office at The Field Museum holding human pelvises
Born	1942 (age 74–75) England, United Kingdom
Alma mater	University of Oxford (PhD; 1967)
Organization	The Field Museum
Website	www.fieldmuseum.org

Robert D. Martin (born 1942) is a British-born biological anthropologist who is currently an Emeritus Curator at The Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, Illinois. He is also an adjunct professor at University of Chicago, Northwestern University, and University of Illinois Chicago. His research spans the fields of anthropology, evolutionary biology and human reproductive biology. Additionally, he writes a popular blog on human reproduction for Psychology Today.

Martin was born in 1942 in the United Kingdom, where he also grew up. He studied zoology at Worcester College at University of Oxford and also earned his PhD from there in 1967. His PhD project (1964-67) on the behavior and evolution of treeshrews (Tupaiidae) was based on research with Konrad Lorenz and Irenäus Eibl-Eibesfeldt (Max-Planck-Institut, Seewiesen), supervised by Nikolaas Tinbergen (University of Oxford). Treeshrews were, at the time, widely thought to be the most primitive living primates. Through his study on their maternal behavior and later through studies of their brains, he concluded in his PhD thesis that treeshrews are not close relatives of primates.

Immediately after his PhD, Martin received a NATO postdoctoral grant (1967–69) to work with J.J. Petter and A. Petter-Rousseaux (Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Brunoy) to study the reproductive biology of mouse lemurs while continuing his work on primate morphology. Afterwards, he received a Lecturer position in Biological Anthropology at University College London (1969–74) where he continued his research on the reproduction of mouse lemurs and comparative work on morphology of the skull, brain, postcranial skeleton and reproductive system in primates. In 1974, Martin became a Senior Research Fellow at the Wellcome Laboratories at the Zoological Society of London where he coordinated research on mammalian reproduction. In 1975, he spent a semester at Yale University as Visiting Professor in the Department of Anthropology. Martin then returned to University College London, first as Reader (1978–82) and then as Professor (1982–86) in Biological Anthropology, during which his research became focused on allometric scaling, particularly regarding the brain. In 1986, he became the Director and Professor of the Anthropological Institute at the University of Zurich in Switzerland, where he started a range of research activities. In 2001, Martin accepted an appointment at The Field Museum, first as Vice President and then as Provost for Academic Affairs while holding the position as curator in the Department of Anthropology. In 2006, he stepped down from his administrative role and became the A. Watson Armour III Curator of Biology Anthropology. He became Emeritus Curator at the end of 2013.