My name is Matthew Martin (he/him) and I am a fifth-year PhD candidate in the Department of Government at the University of Texas at Austin. My fields of study are public law and comparative politics. My substantive research interests include public participation in constitution-making, Latin American politics, indigenous constitutionalism, and immigration politics. I am on the 2025-26 job market.
My dissertation examines the use of public consultation in global constitution-making. I am constructing an original data set of all such public consultations since 1974. I am also a senior research analyst at the Comparative Constitutions Project working on related topics. We recently developed a new method for analyzing public consultation data using natural language processing (NLP) tools, and our research program continues to grow.
Prior to graduate school, I received my B.A. in Political Science and Legal Studies from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. After graduation, I worked as a legal assistant in immigration law at a firm in Washington, D.C. I assisted attorneys with family- and humanitarian-based immigration cases ranging from permanent residence to removal defense to asylum. Today I continue to support trans and gender non-conforming asylum seekers, gathering legal resources, contacting lawyers, and organizing fundraisers on their behalf.
Outside of work, I enjoy playing guitar and producing music—mostly lofi hip-hop.