Martha’s early career was as a researcher and lecturer in Australia’s overseas aid program. She followed this with a long career as a tertiary educator, TAFE senior manager and education policy advisor. She has written extensively and been widely cited on policy and curriculum in tertiary education including book chapters, articles and conference papers. Several of these can be found at https://www.voced.edu.au/.

In 2020, Martha completed a Ph.D at the ANU on teacher unions in Australian technical education. She has contributed an entry to the ADB, presented papers based on her thesis at a number of conferences and was lead author of the chapter on education in The Whitlam Era (Connor Court, 2022). Martha is currently writing a history of Labor and tertiary education for publication in 2025 and is co-editing a collection of essays to commemorate TAFE’s fiftieth anniversary.