Martha began her career at Northern Light Productions in Boston, producing documentary films and interpretive media for museums and historic sites at a transitional time when media types were converging in entirely new ways. Stories could occur in space. They could invite participation. They could become experiences.

She went on to earn an MFA in Film Production from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, studying with Spike Lee and working in feature filmmaking. It changed the way she thought about narrative, pacing, emotion, and the relationship between audience and story. It also instilled a rigor around production that continues to shape how she leads complex creative work.

After New York, Martha joined the Peabody Essex Museum to help rethink the museum's approach to media. She helped integrate exhibit design, media, web, collections, interpretation, and audience into a more cohesive visitor experience. It was the first place her practice began to take its current shape.

The work expanded and accelerated: Second Story Interactive Studios. Gallagher & Associates. Executive leadership roles. National projects. More complex teams. Larger budgets. Higher stakes.

The projects got bigger. The questions got bigger, too. Through the work, Martha became certain of a few things.

Design is strongest when story leads. Technology is at its best when it serves the audience experience and the strongest experiences happen when story, design, technology, and the audiences they serve, inform the work from the very beginning. You can feel it. The seams disappear. The experience becomes whole.

Half Sister Studio grew from those convictions.

Founded in 2022, the studio brings together the disciplines that have defined Martha's career from the start. It also brings communities into the work early enough to influence it in meaningful ways. She believes how a project comes together leaves its mark on what it becomes.

Martha’s curiosity rarely clocks out. Outside the studio she's usually drawing or reading, in the garden singing to her dog, finding swimming holes, filling sketchbooks, cooking for a crowd, or gathered around a table with friends, marveling at the sheer miracle of being.