Mark Humphrey has BSc(Hons), PhD and DSc degrees from the University of Adelaide and a Docteur honoris causa degree from the Université Rennes 1. He held positions at Universität Würzburg, the University of Illinois, and the University of New England, before being appointed to the Department of Chemistry at ANU, the latter becoming part of the new Research School of Chemistry in 2009.

He has held fellowships from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (Germany), Telecom Research Laboratories (Australia), the Science and Technology Agency (Japan), and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, as well as four fellowships from the Australian Research Council (ARC): an Australian Research Fellowship, a Senior Research Fellowship, and 2 x Australian Professorial Fellowships. He is an elected Fellow of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute (RACI), the Royal Society of Chemistry (UK), and the European Academy of Sciences (Academie Européenne des Sciences, Brussels), and is an elected Foreign Member of the Academia Europaea (The Academy of Europe, London).

He has received the RACI’s Organometallic Award, Inorganic Award (Burrows Award), H.G. Smith Memorial Award, and A.E. Leighton Memorial Award, and the David Syme Research Prize.

Mark Humphrey previously served as President of the ACT Branch and Chair of the Inorganic Division of the RACI, and has served on the ARC's College of Experts and twice on the ARC’s ERA Research Evaluation Committee. He was the Australian Director of the Australian Government-funded “Australia-China Joint Research Centre for Functional Molecular Materials”, and the Australian Director of the International Associated Laboratory “Redochrom”, funded by the French CNRS. He is currently Australian Director of the CNRS-funded International Research Project “MAITAI” which links 8 institutions in Australia and France. He has chaired 19 conferences and symposia, including the Asian Conference on Coordination Chemistry, Pacifichem symposia (USA), and Materials Research Society symposia (USA), and he launched the OZOM, MC2R, and MEP conference series.