Meet the Team
A collaborative cross-institutional effort
Facility Operational Leadership
Maureen Walczak
SEASAM Director
Mo Walczak is a marine geologist and paleoceanographer based in the UW School of Oceanography. She has spent hundreds of days at sea over dozens of research cruises on ARF and international vessels, and has extensive experience with a breadth of coring and drilling techniques. Mo is passionate about fostering collaboration in the oceanographic community and supporting researchers in exploring and sampling the ocean floor.
Masako Tominaga
senior facility operations consultant
Masako Tominaga works alongside the Director to provide guidance to supported principal investigators in designing and execution of seafloor sampling plans within the framework of the NSF-SSF and other University National Oceanographic Laboratory System (UNOLS)/Academic Research Fleet (ARF) facilities, with an emphasis on support of hard rock sampling. Dr. Tominaga also supports PI’s in design and execution of geophysical surveys that enable seafloor sampling operations. Dr. Tominaga works with the Director and SEASAM Managers in support of decision making processes to maintain the health and community responsiveness of the SEASAM Facility.
Maziet Cheseby
project manager
Maziet (pronounced may-zee) Cheseby serves as the central point of contact for the facility, which includes communicating with researchers from their planning proposal stage to their needs as funded Principal Investigators. She works with vessel operators and other NSF facility operators for cruise planning. Maziet oversees all aspects of SEASAM scheduling logistics, from maintaining and updating the MARSSAM calendar of cruises to keeping track of required equipment, instruments, and technician support for each cruise.
Paul Walczak
Operations manager
Paul Walczak is the logistics and expeditionary support coordinator for the University of Washington School of Oceanography as well as the Interim Operations Manager for the SEASAM Facility. Paul has been sailing for over 25 years, supporting hundreds of seafloor sampling expeditions from the Antarctic to the Arctic as well as the tropics in every ocean basin. He has spent close to 1000 days at sea on dozens of vessels ranging from small boats to all 21st-century US Academic Research Fleet globals, as well as a number of international research ships and icebreakers. He has extensive experience with a breadth of sampling approaches, from hand deployed grabs to the now-retired WHOI Long Corer, and everything in between.
Sharon Katz Cooper
impact manager
Sharon Katz Cooper is the Impact Manager for SEASAM and the director of the STEMSEAS program. She comes to SEASAM from nearly two decades leading education and outreach for the scientific ocean drilling program (IODP). She has sailed on numerous expeditions on the JOIDES Resolution and the Academic Research Fleet, leading groups of educators and students, and is passionate about cultivating the next generation of scientists and science communicators.
Science Support
Teams
Chris Fanshier
repository coordinator
Chris Fanshier was a coring technician at MARSSAM from 2019 – 2026. He has a bachelor’s degree in geology from University of Oregon graduating in 2007. Between 2007 and 2019 he worked variously as a geologist in the mining industry, tall ship sailor, fisheries science technician, outdoor school teacher, child care provider and parking lot attendant among other pursuits. He is currently at the Oregon State University Marine Geological Repository and will be supporting SEASAM’s seagoing CT, MSCL and X-Ray instruments.
Matt Durham
dredging coordinator
Matt is the SIO Oceanographic Technical Services Manager. He started as a sea going “ResTech” in 2007 and has participated in a wide range of research cruises over the years, including a variety of sediment coring and dredging operations. His current role is focused on operational planning, logistics, and staffing.
Deepa Dwyer
data coordinator
Deepa Dwyer is a postdoctoral scholar at Oregon State University. Her role is to support scientists with instrument maintenance and data collection/organization during expeditions, and to help prepare products for post-cruise analysis. She has extensive experience working with physical properties data and specializes in paleomagnetic analysis in sedimentary records. She is also passionate about outreach and engagement.
Dan Wildrick
expedition leader
Dan Wildrick graduated from Oregon State University in 2023 with a degree in oceanography. During his time at OSU, he worked at Hinsdale Wave Research Laboratory, OSU’s Behrenfeld Lab, and interned with MARSSAM. Since his first time at sea in 2022, he has accrued over 400 days at sea. Dan is experienced in various methods of dredging and coring, from gravity coring to piston coring, and equipping multicores with MISO imagery and telemetry packages. With the groundwork laid by senior technicians and scientists, he and the SEASAM team are taking strides to make dredging safer and more effective by utilizing instrumentation to inform operational protocols.
Sarah Gisler
expedition leader
Sarah Gisler started working as a coring technician in 2024 after completing a MATE internship. Her background is in marine science and mechanical engineering. When she’s not at sea, she enjoys playing soccer and cooking.
Ben Freiberg
expedition leader
Ben completed a Master’s degree in Geology & Geophysics at Oregon State University (OSU) in 2019 and immediately began working for the OSU Marine Sediment Sampling group. With the transition to UW, Ben has stayed part of the team as a part-time coring technician. He wears several (dirty) hats and currently splits time between SEASAM, PacWave, and small vessel operations. Ben has broad experience within the oceanographic research field and enjoys the thrill of learning new skills.
Tony D’Aoust
expedition leader
Tony D’Aoust is a lifelong Alaska Commercial fisherman, including trawling, longlining and other bottom gear types. He is a licensed mariner and operate his own commercial salmon vessel for fishing or research charters. He’s been working in marine science support for over thirty five years and is most happy when the dredge is still attached and on its way to the surface.
Science Service Leadership
Sarah Fuller
shipboard science support, WHOI
Sarah Fuller is the Director of Scientific Services for Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s Marine Operations department. Sarah’s background includes degrees in geology and oceanography, extensive scientific field experience ashore and at sea, and shipboard technical support on various platforms. She is currently serving as the Chair of UNOLS Research Vessel Technical Enhancement Committee (RVTEC).
Chris Griner
shipboard science support, WHOI
Chris is a Senior Engineering Assistant with WHOI’s Shipboard Scientific Services Group, combining over 40 years of maritime experience—including a foundation as a USCG veteran—with 30 years of dedicated service at WHOI. A veteran of multiple WHOI Long Core and Jumbo Piston Coring missions, he has managed and participated in seafloor sampling operations and other scientific and exploration cruises across UNOLS vessels, the USCGC Healy, and international research ships. He specializes in optimizing winch, wire, and overboarding systems for complex scientific research.
Vicki Ferrini
shipboard science support, LDeo
Dr. Vicki Ferrini is the Marie Tharp Senior Research Scientist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and a marine geologist and geophysicist with expertise in seafloor mapping, deep-sea exploration, and marine geoscience data infrastructure. Her work focuses on integrating diverse observations—including bathymetry, imagery and video, navigation, samples, and other submersible data—to make them more discoverable, accessible, and useful for research. Through SEASAM, Ferrini leads efforts to strengthen the integration and interoperability of seafloor sampling data and associated observations, helping connect physical samples with the broader scientific record needed to understand the seafloor and sub-seafloor.
Kerstin Lehnert
shipboard science support, LDEO
Dr. Kerstin Lehnert is Doherty Senior Research Scientist at LDEO and director of the Geoinformatics Research Group. She is an internationally recognized leader in the field of scientific data management, who created new approaches and infrastructure for the open sharing of data and samples in the Earth, environmental, and planetary sciences and beyond, advancing the implementation of principles for Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable research data and data-driven research paradigms.
Joe Stoner
shipboard science support, OSU
Joseph S. Stoner, is a Professor in the College of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University and Director of the OSU-Marine and Geology Repository and the Paleo-and Environmental Magnetism Research Laboratory. Stoner is a paleomagnetist and a marine geologist specializing on sediment magnetism often in high latitude glacial proximal setting. He has spent more than a year and half at sea on 13 different expeditions to most of the worlds oceans on UNOLS, international, and drilling vessels.
Ella Cedarholm
shipboard science support, WHOI
Ella Cedarholm is the Facility Manager of the Potential Fields Pool Equipment (PFPE) within WHOI’s Shipboard Scientific Services Group (SSSG). The PFPE mission is to provide and support marine gravimeters and magnetometers across the UNOLS Academic Research Fleet. Ella leads the team that remotely supports the technicians operating this equipment, organizes logistics for sensor deployment and servicing, and makes ship visits for equipment installation/removal and tech training.
Lee Ellett
shipboard science support, SIO