The people of MARSSAM are seagoing oceanographers and marine geologists. Our group has many decades of seagoing experience and our managers and facility advisors are all experienced principal investigators who have led many of their own coring or dredging cruises. The goal of our structure is to help you get the most productive use of your at-sea time. The following researchers and technicians manage our facility and make sure the cruises we support are successful.
Director:
Dr. Kevin Konrad joined the MARSSAM facility as a co-director in July 2024 and has been leading it since October 2024. He is an experienced marine geologist and has led or sailed onboard multiple rock dredging, ROV and drilling expeditions since 2014. At this time, Kevin oversees all operations including assisting with US PI proposal drafting, funded expedition planning and facilitation, supervising the technicians, drafting and monitoring the budgets, overseeing facility improvements, maintaining industry collaborations to foster innovative seafloor sampling devices and more.
Co-PIs:
Dr. Jeffery Beeson is a marine geophysicist and Assistant Professor at Oregon State University with expertise in seafloor mapping and shallow subseafloor imaging, integrating multibeam bathymetry, acoustic backscatter, and subbottom profiles to guide sampling decisions. He brings a dual perspective from academic/UNOLS expeditions, including piston coring and sampling-intensive cruises, and prior industry experience where he supported seafloor characterization and sampling projects globally. As a MARSSAM Co-PI, Dr. Beeson works with PIs during proposal development and pre-cruise planning to design effective site surveys and to develop practical, best practices that increase sampling success and reduce operational risk.
Dr. Chris Goldfinger is a marine geologist and geophysicist with a focus on great earthquakes and structure of plate boundary fault zones around the world. He has experience with piston coring, deep submersibles, sidescan sonar, seismic reflection, and other marine geophysical tools on over 45 oceanographic cruises over the last 30 years. He is currently working on great subduction earthquakes along the Cascadia, the Caribbean, and Sumatran margins, as well as the Northern San Andreas Fault off northern California. He primarily uses the evidence for earthquakes found in deep-sea turbidites. Goldfinger is a Fellow of the Geological Society of America and was the recipient of the 2016 GSA Kirk Bryan Award for Research Excellence in Quaternary Geology. Goldfinger is an Emeritus Professor of Marine Geology and received his PhD from Oregon State University in 1994. He joined the MARSSAM team in 2017.
Project Manager:
Maziet Cheseby
Maziet has been involved with the MARSSAM group for over 20 years, first as a coring technician, then as an archival specialist serving as liaison with the Marine and Geology Repository and now the full-time project manager for the facility. Maziet helps oversee all operations and navigates shipping, travel, meetings, curatorial needs and budgeting. She is an expert at navigating shipping of large equipment, including hazardous materials.
Research Technicians:
Dale Hubbard
Dale has been part of the MARSSAM coring team for over 25 years. He has expertise in complex multi-disciplinary expeditions and jumbo piston coring. He has sailed in support of marine geology in every ocean and has experience nearly everything that can happen during coring.
Chris Fanshier
Chris joined MARSSAM in 2019, and in the ensuing years has supported research cruises around the globe and built significant expertise in every type of coring supported by our facility. Chris is the current data and laboratory technician and oversees our core scanning vans as well as databases and MARSSAM software. He is deeply competent and always cheerful.
Ben Freiberg
In a longstanding MARSSAM tradition, Ben was hired into the group upon the 2019 completion of his masters’ degree in Geology and Geophysics at OSU. He splits his time between MARSSAM and supporting the PacWave facility. Has broad expertise across many types of seafloor sampling, and always glad to give something new the ol’ college try. Ben has been leading the dredging engineering studies on shear pin and weak link designs
Dan Wildrick
Dan joined the group after interning on a series of research cruises while completing his degree in Oceanography in 2023. Quickly proving an invaluable member of the team, Dan now has experience in most of the seafloor sampling devices supported by MARSSAM and has supported cruises from Antarctica to Baffin Bay. He is the resident expert in rock dredging in addition to his significant coring experience.
Sarah Gisler
Sarah joined MARSSAM in 2024 after obtaining her M.S. in mechanical engineering and completing a MATE internship with the R/V Sikuliaq. Sarah has experience in all forms of coring and rock dredging and is now an invaluable member of the team
Mariana Aguirre Nunes
Mariana came onboard in late 2025 after serving a three-year stint with the Ocean Observatories Initiative. As an Oceanographer with experience in both physical and biological areas, some of her interests are in the development of oceanographic technologies, field experiments, coastal processes, and extreme events. She is currently adapting her skills with building and deploying advanced mooring systems to enhancing and facilitating coring operations.
External Advisory Panel:
