Rate My Professor Jacob Martin

Dr Jacob W. Martin is a Lecturer in the Discipline of Physics and Astronomy at Curtin University within the Faculty of Science and Engineering, where he also leads the Curtin Carbon Group. He earned a Bachelor of Science with First Class Honours in Chemical Sciences and Physics in 2013 and a Master of Science in Chemical Sciences in 2015 from the University of Auckland, followed by a PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Cambridge in 2020. His doctoral thesis, 'Investigating the role of curvature in the formation and thermal transformations of soot,' was supervised by Professor Markus Kraft. Prior to Curtin, Martin served as a Research Fellow at the Cambridge Centre for Carbon Reduction in Chemical Technology in Singapore in 2020 and held a Forrest Research Fellowship at Curtin University from 2021. He has taught courses including CHEM3004 Analytical Chemistry and Spectroscopy, CHEM2000 Physical Chemistry, and NPSC2000 Science Professional Practice at Curtin, and previously tutored at Auckland.

Martin's research specializations encompass carbon materials science, focusing on nanomaterials for hydrogen storage, methane pyrolysis, graphitisation, disordered carbon structures, and soot formation in flames. Key publications include 'Soot Inception: Carbonaceous Nanoparticle Formation in Flames' (Progress in Energy and Combustion Science, 2022), 'π-Diradical Aromatic Soot Precursors in Flames' (Journal of the American Chemical Society, 2021), 'Topology of Disordered 3D Graphene Networks' (Physical Review Letters, 2019), and 'Defining Graphenic Crystallites in Disordered Carbon: Moving Beyond the Platelet Model' (Carbon, 2023). His work has garnered over 795 citations with an h-index of 17. Major awards include the Carbon Journal Thesis Prize (2021), Brian Kelly Award for best early career researcher at the International Carbon Conference (2022), Danckwerts-Pergamon Prize for best PhD thesis from the University of Cambridge (2021), Gaydon Prize from the International Combustion Symposium (2019), Forrest Research Fellowship (2021), and team wins such as the Griffith Hack Overall Winner at Curtinnovation Awards (2025) and ARC Discovery Project funding. Martin contributes as Advisory Editor for Carbon journal, organizes conferences like the International Metal-Hydrogen Conference (2022), serves on the Forrest Research Foundation Researchers Committee, and delivers public outreach including TEDx talks and ABC radio appearances.