Alan G. Marshall completed his Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from Stanford University in 1970, working with John Baldeschwieler on both NMR and ICR projects. He joined the Chemistry faculty at the University of British Columbia (Vancouver, Canada) in 1969, where he was joined two years later by Melvin Comisarow, with whom he collaborated on the invention of FT-ICR MS.
Alan moved to Ohio State University in 1980 as Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry and Director of the Campus Chemical Instrument Center. In 1993, he moved to Florida State University, where he is Kasha Professor of Chemistry and Director of the Ion Cyclotron Resonance Program, supported by NSF as a national user facility. He is best known for his co-invention (with M. B. Comisarow) and continuing leading development of Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance (FT-ICR) mass spectrometry. His major recognitions include: Fellow of American Physical Society, Fellow of American Association for the Advancement of Science, Fellow of the Society for Applied Spectroscopy; three American Chemical Society national awards, two Spectroscopy Society of Pittsburgh Awards, the ASMS Distinguished Contribution Award, the International Society for MS Thomson Medal and a 60th birthday Honor Issue of the Int. Journal of MS. He is the current President of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry, and serves on several editorial boards. He has published 3 books, 3 patents, 417 refereed journal articles, and presented 1,250 talks/posters at conferences, universities, government labs, and industry. His current research spans FT-ICR instrumentation development, fossil fuels and environmental analysis, and mapping the primary and higher-order structures of biological macromolecules and their complexes.