Liam Martin’s research focuses on issues of incarceration, alternatives to prison, and the intersections of technology and criminal justice. He currently holds a prestigious Marsden Grant from the Royal Society Te Apārangi, supporting groundbreaking research into electronic monitoring in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Liam has a track-record of sensitive research into matters of significant public interest. His first book was based on ethnographic fieldwork completed while living at a halfway house for men leaving prison, and his research into electronic monitoring is being developed through a network of relationships with technologists, company officials, politicians, policymakers, and people with lived experience. Since 2020, Liam has been a member of the Ethics Committee at Te Herenga Waka – Victoria University of Wellington.

Liam has a long-term interest in public criminology and communicating academic research for broad audiences. He has been interviewed across a range of national media outlets, including Radio New Zealand, TV3, Newstalk ZB and Māori Television, and published in the New Zealand Herald, The Spinoff, The Press, Newsroom and The Post. He has also presented his research internationally as an invited speaker of the United Nations Development Program and the University of California Berkeley.