He is acknowledged for his work on the neural mechanisms of cognition in invertebrates, which he mostly explores using honeybees as models for understanding basic principles of learning and memory.

Argentina was still under control of the military dictatorship (National Reorganization Process) and Martin Giurfa enrolled in the student movement resisting dictatorial oppression.

He met Prof. Josué Núñez, who trained him in the field of insect behavioral physiology and contacted him with German academia, in particular with Prof. Randolf Menzel Free University of Berlin, a leading neurobiologist working on color vision, learning and memory in honeybees.

This framework represented conceptual switch for a research domain, which had mostly attributed limited cognitive capacities to insects until then.

He is an Associate Editor of several scientific journals such as EJN,[14] Learning & Memory,[15] Animal Cognition[16] and Frontiers in Behavioral Neurosciences[17] among others.

He is a member of Faculty of 1000[18] and deploys an intensive science dissemination activity to render scientific knowledge accessible to broad audiences.

[19] Martin Giurfa has pioneered the field of insect cognition and has investigated during several decades elemental and non-elemental forms of learning.

[23][24] His work has led to the establishment of virtual reality scenarios for honey bees in which he studies their visual learning and decision-making.