Marc Mangel is a distinguished professor who has spent his career investigating fundamental environmental science labors, such as fisheries and agriculture. He received a Bachelor's degree in physics and a Master's degree in physiology and biophysics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign before moving on to earn a Ph.D. in applied mathematics and statistics.

He began his professional life as an operations analyst in the Operations Evaluation Group (OEG) at the Center for Naval Analyses. Later, he joined the faculty at the University of California (Davis campus from 1980-1996 and then the Santa Cruz campus) and started working on problems that lie between basic research and applied fields, known as Pasteur's Quadrant. Marc's work in the environmental sciences motivated by an important applied issue, seeking a fundamental understanding of the problems.

Marc chairs the Board of Directors of FishWise, a non-profit solely devoted to educating point-of-sale employees in fisheries sustainability. He also serves as the Senior Scientific Advisor for MRAG Americas, the US section of MRAG UK, founded by Sir John Beddington. He was the only independent expert among three individuals who offered testimony as the Primary Scientific Expert called upon by Australia in the International Court of Justice case "Whaling in the Antarctic: Australia v. Japan. New Zealand Intervening."

Additionally, in December of 2013, the University of Guelph granted him an honorary Doctor of Science degree for his academic research.