Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory



Christopher David Marshall

Deputy Program Director for DOD Technology Programs

Christopher David Marshall is the deputy program director for DOD Technology Programs at LLNL. In this role, he provides programmatic leadership for various large-scale pulsed laser-technology and national security mission development efforts.

Over the past three decades, Marshall has provided technical integration and management of multi-disciplinary teams at LLNL ranging in size from dozens to hundreds of employees. Most recently, he was the systems engineer for the High Repetition Rate Advanced Petawatt Laser System (HAPLS), the world’s highest rep-rate petawatt-class laser system.

He began his career at LLNL in 1992 as a postdoctoral researcher, working on a variety of applied physics and materials science applications of optical materials to high peak-power inertial confinement fusion (ICF) lasers. In 1994, Marshall became the Laser Science and Technology deputy associate program leader for Advanced Lasers, where he developed and led high average power diode pumped laser technology development. In 1997, he became the chief scientist for the NIF Amplifier System and then the deputy systems engineer responsible for integrating the laser technology across the entire $3.5 billion NIF project.

After the first laser beamline construction was completed, he served as a first-generation NIF shot director responsible for early first-shot commissioning and facility operations. Marshall has co-authored or authored over 100 journal papers and conference proceedings and holds three laser technology patents. He has also served as the chairman for two international conferences on lasers and related systems technologies. 

Marshall received his Ph.D. in chemical physics from Stanford University, where he specialized in ultrafast nonlinear laser spectroscopy on condensed matter including high-temperature superconductors.