Marilyn conducted human drug administration studies for 23 years before retiring from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, where she was a tenured senior investigator and chief of the section of Chemistry and Drug Metabolism of the Intramural Research Program.
She is a senior fellow at the Institute on Emerging Health Professions, Thomas Jefferson University; Honorary Professor at Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry, Queen Mary University of London; member of the Smart Approaches to Marijuana Science Advisory Board; and president of Huestis & Smith Toxicology, LLC.
Marilyn has published more than 500 peer-reviewed publications and book chapters, and has had more than 800 abstracts presented at meetings worldwide. Her recent honors include the Distinguished Service to Safety Award, National Safety Council (2021); the American Association of Clinical Chemistry’s Outstanding Lifetime Achievement Award (2021); the Alexander O. Gettler Award, Toxicology Section, American Academy of Forensic Sciences (2021); the Lyons-Voorhees Endowed Lectureship at the University of Colorado Medical School Department of Psychiatry, Aurora, Colo. (2019); the Robert F. Borkenstein Award, National Safety Council (2018); the Marian W. Fischman Lectureship Award, College on Problems of Drug dependence (2016); and Distinguished Fellow, American Academy of Forensic Sciences (2015).
The journal Clinical Chemistry has featured Marilyn in its “Inspiring Minds” series of essays.