Dr. Sampson's research on Oregon's marine fisheries for groundfish is focussed on two general areas: (1) stock assessment and fisheries management issues, and (2) fishermen's behavior, particularly fishing strategies and choice of fishing locations. During summer 2000 he served, on behalf of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, as chair of the Pacific Fishery Management Council's stock assessment review (STAR) panel for stock assessments for widow rockfish and lingcod. Also, he presented a talk at the Tenth Biennnial Conference of the International Institute of Fisheries Economics and Trade on results from an Oregon Sea Grant project that developed quantitative measures of fishing strategy from Oregon trawl logbook data. During winter 2001 Dr. Sampson began work on a new stock assessment for Dover sole, which was formally reviewed by a Council STAR panel during July 2001.

During autumn 2000 Dr. Sampson taught the upper division course "Dynamics of Marine Biological Resources Fisheries" to 17 students. The class, which was broadcast to Corvallis from the Science Center using a tele-video system, was split about equally between students in Corvallis and ones in residence at the HMSC. During the 2000/2001 acdemic year two of Dr. Sampson's students successfully defended their theses: Tonya Builder defended her Fisheries M.S. thesis "Feasibility of supplementary sampling of the commercial groundfish landings in Oregon using seafood plant workers" and Jiraporn Trisak defended her Fisheries Ph.D. thesis "The influence of biological characteristics on fisheries co-management: a game theory perspective". Dr. Sampson's current graduate students are conducting research on the following topics: the influence of data uncertainty on groundfish stock assessments; oceanographic influences on the survival of Columbia River salmon; dynamics of anchovy and sardine populations; rockfish food habits and feeding ecology; and a bioenergetic model of Steller sea lion growth and survival.