Dr. Martinez is an Associate Professor in the Comparative Studies department at Ohio State.  She was previously Associate Professor in the Department of Puerto Rican and Latino studies at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York.  She has completed fieldwork in Puerto Rico and specializes in Latino and Puerto Rican Studies in addition to Urban Studies.

Her recent article titled "Democratic Rights and Nuyorican Identity in the U.S. Mainland Partido Socialista Puertoriqueno" was published in Latino/a Research Review in 2010.  Dr. Martinez has also been published in Social Movement Studies and Minority Voices: Linking Personal Ethnic History and the Sociological Imagination.