Her core areas of research and expertise are: community ecology, biodiversity, multivariate analysis, resampling methods, experimental designs, and statistical models of species abundances.

Marti J. Anderson completed a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Biology at Occidental College in 1991, advised by Dr Gary Martin.

Following this, she was awarded a U2000 Postdoctoral Fellowship to continue her work in marine science as part of the Centre for Ecological Impacts of Coastal Cities at the University of Sydney.

In 1999, she began a full-time academic position as Lecturer in the Department of Statistics at the University of Auckland, rising to Associate Professor in 2007.

She was appointed to a Professorial Chair in Statistics at the Institute for Information and Mathematical Sciences (IIMS) at Massey University's Albany campus in 2009.