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Matt Massey joins KGS Geologic Mapping Section

Matt Massey didn’t originally plan to get into the geology field as a profession. "I was an undergraduate engineering major at the University of Tennessee, and I took geology as an elective and really liked it,” he says. “I had a good teacher, and enjoyed the class."

So he changed his major, earning a bachelor’s degree in geology at UT in 2000, followed by master’s and doctoral degrees at UK’s Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, where he also served as an instructor and post-doctoral research associate. On March 16, Massey joined the Geologic Mapping Section of KGS, where he will participate in surficial mapping supported by the STATEMAP program. Massey already had experience with this USGS-supported mapping program. He had mapped a quadrangle in Massachusetts in a STATEMAP-funded post-doctoral project. He had also mapped another Massachusetts quadrangle that was the basis of his Ph.D. dissertation; it was funded by the related EDMAP program, which provides competitive funding to train college and university students in geologic mapping.

"I’m here to develop new collaborations, learn new things, and see where that takes me,” Massey says. “I enjoy mapping, obviously, as well as being outside. I’ve been into rock climbing since high school. That’s all I try to do in my free time."

Massey is originally from Alabama, but lived also in Tennessee and Wyoming, as a result of his father’s career as a coal mining engineer. His father also had an interest in collecting rocks. "He got me interested in them at an early age. He would bring different kinds of geodes and rocks they would find at mine sites. I guess that did get my interest in geology started."

Massey has also served as an assistant professor at Marshall University and a visiting scientist at the University of Liverpool.