Martin Schumacher graduated from the University of Dortmund in mathematics and statistics in 1974. He stayed in Dortmund and earned his PhD in 1977. Between 1975 and 1979 and 1983 and 1986 he worked for Siegfried Schach. In between, he spent the years 1979-1983 at the University of Heidelberg and worked for Herbert Immich. There he became a professor in 1982, working on the analysis of survival time. In 1984 he worked as a guest professor at the University of Washington in Seattle (USA). After returning to Dortmund he was offered a position at the University Medical Center Freiburg. He became the head of an institute from April 1986 until his retirement in May 2017.