BSc(Hons)(Cant), PhD(Auck) Professor Kennedy obtained his BSc(Hons) at University of Canterbury, and his PhD in bacterial genetics at the University of Auckland, and carried out postdoctoral research in leukaemia genetics at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge (UK) before returning to University of Otago, Christchurch in 1991.
Professor Martin Kennedy's main research interests are psychiatric genetics, pharmacogenomics, and the genetics of complex disease.