Austin Martini, PhD

Howdy!

My name is Austin Martini, and I’m excited to share the unconventional path I took to become a Developmental and Reproductive Toxicologist. I hope that by reading this, someone might realize that a scientific career is still within reach—even if your personal journey doesn’t follow the “traditional blueprint.”

To start, I changed my career aspirations more than once growing up. In high school, I auditioned for and attended Weaver Academy, where my coursework focused on acting, set design, costumes, makeup, and more. By my junior year, I realized my singing and dancing skills left much to be desired—Broadway was out!—so I decided to explore a new direction in college.

Initially, I set my sights on becoming a nurse. However, an A- in sociology kept me from being accepted into the nursing cohort on my first application. Slightly bitter, I pivoted to pre-med. While building a competitive resume for medical school, I landed an internship in Dr. Edward Levin’s incredible lab at Duke University. That experience introduced me to the fascinating world of toxicology—and I was hooked.

It felt like a scene out of The Matrix: once I learned about the pervasive nature of chemical exposure, developmental impacts in utero, and emerging technologies like New Alternative Methodologies, I couldn’t unlearn it. That revelation led me to pursue a PhD at Cornell University. Today, I work at Corteva Agriscience™ as a DART (Developmental and Reproductive Toxicology) study director.

My work led me to the Society for Birth Defects Research and Prevention (BDRP), where I’ve found a professional home. I initially joined because I lacked networking opportunities during college and grad school and was eager to connect with others in the field. BDRP exceeded all my expectations. Its smaller size fosters genuine connections across diverse career paths—academic, industry, government, nonprofit—that larger societies often can't offer. I now give back by serving on the Communications Committee and mentoring students, offering the guidance I wish I’d had along the way.

As a more personal aside, apart from being so fascinated with science I would consider myself a coffee snob, fond of travel (with my main goal of traveling is eating my way through local cuisines), video games, dungeons and dragons, being physically fit with my new obsession being bouldering. I also want to mention that one of my best moves in my scientific and professional career was something I was so upset about in college, my acting background. I was disappointed and upset since I felt so behind my peers as I didn’t enter college with any classes since while “traditional” students were taking AP classes, I was taking advanced monologues. It was only until I started getting into my scientific career the skills acquired from theatre have made me a much better scientific communicator which has proved invaluable.

That’s me in a nutshell!