#SoCaltech: Audrey Martin

“My dad is a director of theater, my brother is a comedian—basically, my whole family is in the arts. I did professional theater acting as a teenager, and, at the time, I realized you could have a career doing stunt work for the movies. I knew a stunt actor who was in The Dark Knight and asked him, ‘Can you teach me to be a stunt person?’ He said, ‘Yes,’ and started training me to do stunt work. I also did some mixed martial arts for a little bit.

“As an undergrad, I was finding that I was very interested in science, and I kind of came to a fork in the road—which way should I go? I decided to go the science route, and I’m happy that I did, although, unfortunately, I never participated in any film production. But I think my interest in both fields stems from a desire to do creative work, and I think there’s a lot of creativity that goes into doing science. And also, once you have results to share, you think about ways to present your work, not only to your colleagues and people in your field, but in making your work engaging to the public. So, I think there’s more overlap in terms of creativity than people might think.”

Audrey Martin joined Caltech on July 23 as a research scientist in the Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences. Her research involves the study of asteroids and the Moon through James Webb Space Telescope spectra analysis, Apollo sample characterization, and the creation of asteroid and lunar regolith analogs. Outside of work, she co-hosts a podcast called Walkabout The Galaxy, which focuses on the latest news in astronomy and physics.