Marshall Lilly recently joined the State Department as a Franklin Fellow in the Office of Iranian Affairs, located in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs (NEA). He currently assists in covering nuclear non-proliferation issues, as well as negotiations with the UN and IAEA.

He holds an A.S. in Applied Science, a Bachelor of Specialized Studies in Political Media, and an M.A. in Political Science from Ohio University. He recently completed coursework for a second M.A. in History. He also studied Arabic through the University of Wisconsin's Arabic/Persian Immersion Program during the summer of 2007. Between the M.A. programs, Marshall also taught Political Science courses at Ohio University covering American Government, International Relations Theory, and Middle Eastern Politics. At age 23, he was the youngest person in the department with full teaching responsibilities.

Marshall's research for the past seven years has been almost exclusively focused on the Middle East, particularly Iraq and Iran. He has presented research on Iraqi democratization, and the effects of Sunni/Shi’a tensions on the region to both the American Political Science Association and the International Studies Association.