Sophie Martin is Full Professor in the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of Geneva and Honorary Professor at the University of Lausanne. She leads a research group that aims to understand how cells control their own shape. Her current work focuses on the study of cell differentiation and fusion during sexual reproduction.

Sophie Martin studied biology at the Universities of Lausanne and Zurich and obtained her PhD from the University of Cambridge (UK) in 2003. After postdoctoral training at the University of Columbia (NY, USA), she started her own research group at the University of Lausanne in 2007, first as Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) Professor at the Center for Integrative Genomics, then as Professor in the Department of Fundamental Microbiology, of which she was Director between 2020 and 2022. She was appointed to the University of Geneva in 2023.

She received numerous awards for her research work, including the Friedrich Miescher Award and the EMBO Gold Medal in 2014, and was elected an EMBO member in 2020. Her research has been supported by three consecutive ERC grants, at starting, consolidator and advanced levels. Active in several initiatives to promote gender equality, Sophie Martin has served on the SNSF Ambizione grant evaluation committee for 7 years and on the steering committee for ERC transitional measures since the exclusion of Switzerland from European research programs.

Sophie Martin has been a member of the Swiss Science Council since 2024.