Marshall W. Van Alstyne (born March 28, 1962 inColumbus, Ohio) is a professor at Boston University and research associate at the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy. His work focuses on the economics of information.Van Alstyne grew up in North Carolina before earning a B.A in computer science from Yale University, and M.S. and Ph.D. in information systems from the MIT Sloan School of Management. He is the son of constitutional law scholar William Van Alstyne.