Marcello Abbrescia graduated in Physics in 1990, and was awarded with a Ph.D in 1994. His research activity focuses on elementary particle physics, with particular attention to the development of gasesous detectors for high energy physics experiments, or for humanitarian applications. Since 1994 he is with the CMS collaboration, which, on 4 July 2012, announced, jointly with the ATLAS collaboration, the discovery of the Higgs boson.

He also takes part to the Extreme Energy Events experiment, devoted to the study of extensive air showers initiated by cosmic rays, of which, he was also scientific responsible. Within EEE, he coordinated and took part to three expeditions at the Svalbard Islands, for the study of cosmic rays at high latitudes, close to the North Pole.

Together with Paolo Fonte and Vladimir Peskov, internationally recognized experts on particle detectors, he is the first author of the book "Resistive Gaseous Detectors: Designs, Performance, Perspectives", published by Wiley-VCH in April 2018, and translated in Chinese for the Tsinghua University Press.