Marder was granted the honor for his "seminal contributions to the theory-inspired design, synthesis, characterization and application of organic second- and third-order nonlinear optical, photorefractive and electronic materials," according to materials provided by the ACS.

Marder is known for his work in developing materials for nonlinear optics as well as organic electronics and photonics. He joined Georgia Tech in 2003 and is the founding director of the Center for Organic Photonics and Electronics. Before that he was at the University of Arizona, the California Institute of Technology and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

In 2009, Marder received Georgia Tech's Outstanding Award for Research Program Development and was named a fellow of the American Physical Society. He is also a fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, SPIE, the Optical Society of America and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Marder has co-authored more than 300 peer-reviewed research papers and holds 18 patents. He is co-founder of Arizona Microsystems, LLC; Focal Point, LLC; and LumoFlex, LLC.