Martin completed a Bachelor of Pharmacy at the Victorian College of Pharmacy in Melbourne from 1979 to 1981, receiving the Gold Medal for the best student in the B Pharm course. After spending a year as a trainee pharmacist, she completed a Masters in Pharmacy, supervised by Professor Peter Andrews, on the application of computational chemistry to opioid analgesics, which led to her first scientific publications. She left Australia in 1986 to undertake a DPhil at the University of Oxford supported by a Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 Science Research Scholarship and four other scholarships and bursaries. Under the guidance of Professors Peter Goodford and Louise Johnson, her research used protein crystallography to design glycogen phosphorylase inhibitors as potential anti-diabetic compounds. Martin paid tribute to Louise Johnson's positive influence as a woman in science, in a 2012 memorial. In 2015, Martin completed the London Business School four-week Senior Executive Programme as part of a cohort of 50 industry, government, not-for-profit and academic leaders from around the world. In 2023, Martin completed an online Undergraduate Certificate in Family History from the [https://www.google.com/aclk?sa=l&ai=DChcSEwiW9uH_j5iEAxVWCIMDHf6GDm4YABACGgJzZg&ase=2&gclid=Cj0KCQiAzoeuBhDqARIsAMdH14GwjXjh23mHhvc85Ylj-BUMfkUAIDjCBBr3G0RiJafu7v66pH5Yn9IaAjHMEALw_wcB&ei=PuPCZd6WF6704-EP1cOiwAM&sig=AOD64_0xATKTqF7y1q3STohfIPcHxjiRDA&q&sqi=2&nis=4&adurl&ved=2ahUKEwjerdr_j5iEAxUu-jgGHdWhCDgQ0Qx6BAgLEAE University of Tasmania].