His research interests lie in theoretical computer science, discrete optimization and combinatorics.
Four key contributions made by Martin Dyer are: In 1991, Professor Dyer received the Fulkerson Prize in Discrete Mathematics (Jointly with Alan Frieze and Ravi Kannan for the paper "A random polynomial time algorithm for approximating the volume of convex bodies" in the Journal of the Association for Computing Machinery) awarded by the American Mathematical Society and the Mathematical Programming Society.
In 2021 he was awarded the Godel Prize for the paper "An Effective Dichotomy for the Counting Constraint Satisfaction Problem."
(Other contemporaneous recipients were Andrei Bulatov, Jin-Yi Cai, Xi Chen.)
In 2013, the European Association for Theoretical Computer Science (EATCS) Awards Committee, consisting of Leslie Ann Goldberg, Vladimiro Sassone and Friedhelm Meyer auf der Heide (chair), unanimously decided to give the EATCS Award to Professor Martin Dyer.