He received his BA in chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. After completing his postdoctoral work at the University of Oxford, he moved to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at California Institute of Technology.
Dr. Marder has served on numerous advisory boards for journals and is the founding chair of the editorial board for the Royal Society of Chemistry materials journal Materials Horizons.
He will have joint appointments in chemical and biological engineering within the College of Engineering and Applied Science and in chemistry in the College of Arts and Sciences. He will also be named a RASEI fellow and have a joint appointment at NREL.
Dr. Marder is a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, the American Physical Society, the Royal Society of Chemistry, the Materials Research Society, the Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE), the Optical Society of America and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is also a member of the World Cultural Council.