Mark was born in Pittsburgh, PA and raised in O’hara Township, a Pittsburgh suburb.  He attended Allegheny College in Meadville, PA where he received his Bachelor's of Science degree in Chemistry.  There he performed undergraduate research with Professor Glen Rogers and studied meso-2, 3-dimercapto succinic acid Pb II complexes by IR.  The ligand was a potential heavy metal poisoning antidote.   He also worked two summers at PPG Industries at the Fiber Glass Technical Research Center in O’hara Township where he made fiber glass tire cord test samples and injection molded test samples reinforced with chopped fiber glass.    

     After graduating from Allegheny, he spent a short time working as a biochemist in the Department of Medicine at the VA Medical Center in Oakland, PA.  He studied the enzymatic pathway of guanylate cyclase activity and the impact of nitric oxide binding with Dr. Patricia A. Craven and Dr. Frederick R. DeRubertis.  He next worked as a chemist at AMSCO now Seris Corporation in Erie, PA where he patented a hydrogen peroxide delivery method.

     Mark performed his Ph.D. work in mass spectrometry at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana with Professor Robert Graham Cooks.  He studied membrane inlet mass spectrometry (MIMS) and developed a direct insertion membrane probe.  The membrane probe was used to monitor semi-volatile organics in water such as in fermentation broth and the probe was patented and used as the basis for the formation of MIMS Corporation by Scott Bauer.   Under the supervision of Professor Graham Cooks and Dr. Jon Amy he developed the first quadrupole-surface induced dissociation (SID)-quadrupole mass spectrometer in 1986 while studying at Finnigan Corporation in San Jose, CA (now ThermoFisher Scientific).   With this instrument he studied energy deposition of ion/surface collisions compared to gas phase activation techniques and he explored ion/surface reactions and ion sputtering phenomenon.  The Q-SID-Q mass spectrometer became the basis for Professor Vicki Wysocki’s research at VCU.  

     Mark joined Finnigan Corporation in 1988 as a Scientist where he helped to develop the first commercial electrospray and atmospheric pressure chemical ionization 3D-quadrupole field ion trap mass spectrometer called the LCQ.  He co-invented the linear ion trap which is now used worldwide and the toroid ion trap in 1995.

     In August of 1996, Mark came to Carnegie Mellon to become the Director of the Center for Molecular Analysis.  He is currently an Associate Research Professor of Chemistry.  His current work is focused on mass spectrometry instrumentation development including MIMS and the development of a heavy ion mass spectrometer directed at a top-down approach for macromolecules analysis.