Marshall Perrin '96

After graduating from Severn, Marshall earned his AB in Physics and Astronomy and Astrophysics from Harvard. He went on to UC Berkeley, where he was a NASA Michelson Fellow, and earned his PhD in Astronomy. Marshall’s research seeks to understand our Earth’s context in the diversity of planetary systems, through high contrast imaging of nearby solar systems. An expert in optics and wavefront control technologies, he oversees the technical work of a diverse team of scientists and engineers who hope to answer long-standing questions about the formation and evolution of planetary systems, and ultimately whether there are other worlds nearby capable of supporting complex biospheres like our own. He helped develop the Gemini Planet Imager, an adaptive optics instrument for the Gemini Telescope designed to image extrasolar planets orbiting nearby stars. Marshall currently lives in Baltimore, where he is an Associate Astronomer with tenure at the Space Telescope Science Institute.