Marc Kassis is currently a support astronomer at the W. M. Keck Observatory where he works to keep both the observers and astronomical instruments running as efficiently as possible. He became interested in astronomy while participating in an astronomy Research Experience for Undergraduate program which was sponsored by the National Science Foundation and hosted at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in La Serena, Chile. He was raised in Idaho and graduated from Twin Falls High School before enrolling at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon. In between his sophomore and junior years at Willamette, he decided to take a year off to explore what physics had to offer by interning at the Brookhaven National Laboratory and at Cerro Tololo. Eventually, he graduated from Willamette after studying physics and mathematics.

He then earned a Ph.D. in Astronomy from Boston University where he studied for six years and built an instrument for the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility, on Mauna Kea.

Today, he lives in Waimea with his wife and daughter, and when not working at the Keck Observatory, he may be caught fishing, running, and hiking around the big island.