Michael Marder is a member of the Center for Nonlinear Dynamics, internationally known for its experiments on chaos and pattern formation, and for many years ranked #1 in the nation by US News and World Report. He is involved in a wide variety of theoretical, numerical, and experimental investigations, ranging from studies of plasticity and phase transformations to experiments on sand ripples at the sea bottom. He specializes in the mechanics of solids, particularly the fracture of brittle materials. He has developed numerical methods allowing fracture computations on the atomic scale to be compared directly with laboratory experiments on a macroscopic scale. He is employing these methods to study the production of natural gas from hydrofractured shale. He has also published two textbooks, one a graduate text on Condensed Matter Physics, and the other an undergraduate text on Research Methods for Science

Marder is the executive director of the UTeach Science Program, and co-director of UTeach, the university program for preparation of secondary math and science teachers. He oversees the national expansion of UTeach to 40 universities, is helping to introduce inquiry techniques into undergraduate teaching, and oversees several other programs aimed at improving science and mathematics education in K-12 schools.