Geoscience Alumni Leadership Endowment (GALE)
Our experiences at Winona State University readied usfor the challenges we encountered in graduate school and industry. The Geoscience department, and research conducted within, prepared us to think independently, instilled confidence in our scientific development and ability to communicate our research effectively, as well asprovided the exposure to a multitude of geologic terrains and problems therein. We would like to enable current and future students with the same opportunities through researchfunding.
Samuel Plitzuweit
Samuel is a senior petroleum geologist at ExxonMobil, where he has worked since 2010.
Currently, he is working on the Global Stratigraphic Traps Thematic, which is part of Business Development organization within the Exploration Company. His team is investigating genetic controls on the formation and hydrocarbon potential of deepwater, clastic reservoirs in unlimited accommodation environments. Samuel has also worked on teams analyzing: i) crustal evolution and drift fill evolution along the Atlantic rift margins of South America, ii) regional stratigraphic framework of the Delaware Basin of the Permian region in west Texas, and iii) deepwater turbidite and debrite deposits from offshore Equatorial Guinea. Before joining ExxonMobil, he worked as a GIS analyst for Wiser Company, interpreting cultural features from satellite imagery.
In 2009, Samuel received his M.S. in Geology from Ohio University along with a GIS Certification. His master’s thesis focused on how channel network geometries and basin morphology influences hydrological responses which ultimately drive sediment transport, bedrock erosion, and longitudinal profile maintenance. He earned his B.S. in Geoscience from Winona State University in 2007 with a senior thesis focusing on the influence of local bedform structures on erosional controls in riffle-pool sequences. Samuel also attended the NSF-funded Research Experience for Undergraduates offered by the University of Southern Maine. During his internship, he studied transpressional deformation in localized areas adjacent to the Norumbega shear zone.
During his free time, Samuel enjoys playing with his son (Owen), traveling with his wife (Shelby), listening to vinyl records too loud, ensuring job security for groundskeepers at local golf courses, and attempting to set hooks in fishless Texas lakes.
Shelby (Frost) Plitzuweit
Shelby is a senior petrophysicist at Anadarko Petroleum Corporation, where she has worked since 2017. She currently works in U.S. Onshore Exploration integrating petrophysics, petrology, and geology. Previous to working at Anadarko, she spent five years as a petrophysicist at Apache working both U.S. and International exploration, and two years at Baker Hughes analyzing unconventional resources through geochemical spectroscopy.
In 2010 Shelby received her M. S. in geology from the University of Minnesota, Duluth, where her research focused on metamorphic petrology, including pressure/temperature regimes and EDS spectroscopy. She earned her B. S. in geology in 2008, and did research including sedimentary flume experiments and a metamorphic paragenesis project in Maine.
Shelby married Sam Plitzuweit in 2011, who she met in the Winona State Geology department. They currently live in Houston, TX with their son (Owen), dog, and two cats. In her free time she enjoys traveling, adding to her extensive rock collection, good food, good beer and good conversation.
Carl Matzek
Carl is a petroleum geoscientist for ExxonMobil, where he has worked since 2013.
Currently he is working as a GIS specialist for the Geoscience Computing Company, a division of ExxonMobil that serves as technical support for geoscience applications, and workflow consulting for other geoscientists in the company.
In 2012 Carl earned his M.S. in Geology from Central Washington University. His research was an analysis of sediment transport and storage in a high gradient mountain river pre/post a dam removal using repeat LiDAR surveys. In 2010 Carl earned his B.S. in Environmental Geoscience from Winona State University. While studying there he conducted research that included structure field mapping and microstructure analysis in thin sections of the Precambrian metamorphic Little Elk Terrane in the Black Hills, South Dakota.
Carl lives in Houston, TX in his free time he enjoys mountain biking, boating, traveling, hunting a variety of critters in North America, and cheering on my Wisconsin sports teams.
Douglas Portis
Doug is a senior petroleum geoscientist at Pioneer Natural Resources, where he has worked since 2010. He is currently the Subsurface Manager for the South Texas Asset Team where his team of engineers, geologist, and geophysicist are exploiting the Eagle Ford shale reservoir, as well as drilling development wells in the Sinor Wilcox conventional reservoir, both onshore Gulf Coast Texas. Previously, Doug has worked as a a manager of the Permian Operations Geology group, drilling wells in the Spraberry and Wolfcamp intervals in the Midland Basin. Eagle Ford asset team as an operations geologist, development geologist, and regional geologist integrating geology, geophysics, petrophysics, and production/engineering data to better understand the reservoir. Prior to that, Doug spent 6 months on the Shale Technology Group working on rock mechanics problems and rock failure due to induced seismicity in shale reservoirs.
Doug earned his M.S. in Geology from Northern Arizona University in 2009, where his research focused on delineation of the Paleoproterozoic Mojave/Yavapai boundary zone through structural analysis, pressure-temperature determinations, geochemical analysis of metamafic rocks, plate reconstructions, and vector models. He earned his B.S Geoscience (Geology Option) from Winona State University in 2007 where he worked on several research projects including cave passage development in Kentucky, sequence stratigraphic framework of the Franconia formation, XRF, XRD, and SEM analysis of the glauconitic member of the Franconia Formation, and structural and metamorphic characterization of a Paleoproterozoic shear zone in the Black Hills, South Dakota.
Doug lives in Celina TX with his wife, two daughters and newborn son (Jackie, Jenna, and Cooper), and their two boxers and cat. He enjoys spending time with family, camping, hunting, fishing, BBQing, refinishing funriture, and listening to and playing music.
Scholarship contacts are Samuel Plitzuweit, Shelby (Frost) Plitzuweit, Carl Matzek, and Douglas Portis.