Mitch Wells earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Chemistry from Monmouth College, Monmouth IL in 1995 and a Ph.D. in analytical chemistry from Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN in 2000. His Ph.D. research was conducted with Professor R. Graham Cooks, and involved improving the performance and applicability of mass spectrometers for field use as chemical and explosive detectors.  He spent two years as a post-doctoral colleague of Professor Scott McLuckey at Purdue, developing novel instrumentation and methods for the characterization of biological molecules, including whole proteins and DNA oligomers.

In 2002, Wells became senior research scientist at the newly-founded Griffin Analytical Technologies (now part of the Integrated Detection Systems business unit Teledyne FLIR Defense), contributing to the company mission to move gold-standard Mass Spec chemical detection technology out of the laboratory and into the field for detection of hazardous substances, including chemical warfare agents (CWAs), toxic industrial chemicals (TICs), explosives, and narcotics.  Wells has served as the PI on numerous government- and internally-funded research projects, including for Department of Homeland Security, JPEO CBRND, and DTRA.  He has published approximately 30 research papers and reviews, given numerous posters and oral presentations at scientific conferences, and is a joint holder of numerous patents concerning mass spectrometry technology.