Robert Marshall (1901–1939) is best known as the founder of the the Wilderness Society, a non-profit organization dedicated to environmental sustainability and the protection of the United States' forests and natural resources. He graduated from Harvard with a Masters in forestry in 1925 and joined the Forest Service, where he studied post-fire forest regeneration at the Northern Rocky Mountain Experiment Station. In 1930 he earned a PhD in plant physiology from John Hopkins University with a dissertation titled An Experimental Study of the Water Relations of Seedling Conifers with Special Reference to Wilting. The same year he would publish the article The Problem of the Wilderness, which lays out his views on the benefits of wilderness and the importance of protecting natural lands. These ideas were put into practice with his 1935 foundation of the Wilderness Society. At the time he was the director of the Forestry Division of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, a position he took in 1935 and would hold until 1937 when he was appointed director of the Forest Service's Division of Recreation and Lands. He would hold this position until his sudden death in 1939.

His interests were not solely botanical, as he also pursued some sociological research. His best known work in this field is his book Arctic Life, an account of his time spent living in the village of Wiseman, Alaska. He took several trips there starting in 1929, during which he split his time between extensive anthropological research and exploration of the Brooks Range mountains.