Marshall Davidson Hatch

Marshall Davidson Hatch (b 24 December 1932) is an Australian biochemist and plant physiologist.

Hatch studied biochemistry at the University of Sydney with Frederick Robert Whatley, he completed his BSc with honours in 1954 From 1955 to 1959 he was a plant research scientist at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) in Sydney. He was awarded his PhD in 1959 by the University of Sydney received a Fulbright Fellowship in 1961 which he used to work with Paul Karl Stump in the Department for Biochemistry at the University of California.

From 1961 to 1966 Hatch worked as research officer in the David North Plant Research Centre at Colonial Sugar Refining CO. Ltd. in Brisbane with K.T. Glasziou. He was a reader in botany at the University of Queensland in 1967, he returned to CSR from 1968 to 1969 serving as director of the David North Plant Research Centre. From 1970 has been a Chief Research Scientist at CSIRO Plant Industry in Canberra.

Hatch discovered the C4 carbon fixation pathway with Charles Roger Slack, the pathway is also known as the Hatch-Slack pathway of photosynthesis. He has published more than 200 papers in scientific journals and books in the field of photosynthesis and other areas of plant biochemistry. For his contributions to the plant sciences he received the International Prize for Biology in 1991 and was made a Member of the Order of Australia.