He received his PhD in polymer chemistry in the Material Science and Engineering Department at the Georgia Institute of Technology and soon after completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the Georgia Institute of Technology. His current research program is directed at the development of innovative and novel routes to exploit and utilize biomass resources. Dr. Marcus Foston primary research themes are: (1) the characterization of biomass in an effort to understand, design, and optimize its downstream conversion, (2) the development of processes that are designed to convert lignin into value-added chemicals and materials, and (3) the synthesis novel biomass-derived synthetic polymers for specific applications.