Martin is Professor of Intellectual History at the University of Erfurt and Director of the Gotha Research Center. He studied philosophy in Tübingen, Berlin and Munich. From 2005 to 2008 he was Professor of History at Rutgers University, USA. He is a member of several German academies and has been a member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, the Wissenschaftskolleg in Berlin, and the NIAS in Amsterdam. His work on Renaissance philosophy, the history of early modern science, and the Radical Enlightenment has received numerous awards, including the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities Prize and the Anna Krüger Prize. Martin is interested in painting, traveling, and foreign cultures. He is currently working on a deep history of truth and on how intellectual history (and especially the history of the Enlightenment) is affected by the climate crisis.

At THE NEW INSTITUTE, Martin is involved as an individual fellow in the Academic Year 2024/25.