Marissa Tessman

Marissa Tessman has worked in various roles since 2014. In 2014, they served as a Cluster Teaching Assistant for the California State Summer School for Mathematics and Science (COSMOS). From 2015 to 2017, they worked as a Graduate Researcher for Food & Fuel for the 21st Century, a Graduate Teaching Assistant for UC San Diego, and a Research Scientist for Algenesis Materials. In their role as Research Scientist, they were the Principal Investigator of an NSF SBIR Phase I and II grant worth over $1 million. Marissa developed PU flip flops from algae oil, which resulted in a development and manufacturing contract with REEF. Her responsibilities included formulation and processing of polyurethanes, writing progress reports, and coordinating with the CFO and DO. As Graduate Researcher, they led a small research team of undergraduates and volunteers in developing algae-based polyols and incorporating them into a commercial polyurethane foam to create the first sustainable surfboards with comparable performance characteristics. Marissa also collaborated with Arctic Foam, a local surfboard manufacturer, in scaling up the formula from laboratory to factory scale. These boards won 1st Place in Sustainable Surfing Innovation at the 2015 Boardroom International Surfboard Show, and have received attention from multiple news sources. As Graduate Teaching Assistant, they designed and taught lesson plans involving method development and analysis of samples on the HPLC, GCMS, HSGC, cation and anion IC, Karl Fisher titrator, autotitrator, and FTIR spectrometer. Marissa also performed scheduled and unscheduled maintenance on the instruments and supervised 20-30 students in a laboratory setting.

Marissa Tessman received their Bachelor of Science (B.S.) in Chemistry from UC San Diego in 2014, and then went on to receive their Master of Science (M.S.) in Chemistry from the same university in 2016.