John Marshall is a professor in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at MIT. He did his undergraduate and PhD studies in Physics at Imperial College, London. He has broad interests in climate and the general circulation of the atmosphere and oceans. Marshall’s research is directed at understanding the cause of the general circulation of the ocean, its interaction with the atmosphere and with ice, and its role in the global climate.
Research foci are: general circulation of the ocean, ocean convection and thermohaline circulation, ocean gyres and circumpolar currents, polar oceans, role of the ocean in climate, geophysical fluid dynamics, numerical modeling of the ocean and atmosphere.
Marshall also collaborates closely with the Goddard Institute for Space Studies of Columbia University where he is an adjunct senior research scientist in the Department of Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics.
Supervisor of 25 or so Ph.D. students and over 40 postdoctoral researchers:
see here and here.
Author or coauthor of 250 or so publications: complete list here and Google Scholar.
Honors and Awards:
1973: Scholarship to Read Physics at Imperial College, London
1986: L.F. Richardson Prize of the Royal Meteorological Society
2004: Adrian Gill Prize of the Royal Meteorological Society
2008: Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, UK Academy of Sciences
2010: Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Oceanography endowed chair, MIT
2010: Audrey Buyrn and Alan Phillips ‘Ally of Nature Award’, MIT
2014: Elected a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society
2014: Sverdrup Gold Medal of the American Meteorological Society
2016: Bernhard Haurwitz Prize of the American Meteorological Society
2020: A.G. Huntsman Award of the Royal Society of Canada
2025: Excellence in Postdoctoral Mentoring Award, MIT
