Assistant Professor of Marine Science Emily Lancaster in the tide pools of Maine. Photos courtesy of Emily Lancaster
Every summer when she was a child, Emily Lancaster, Ph.D., assistant professor of marine science at Eckerd College, visited SeaWorld San Diego with her family. They took in the usual favorites—the dolphin, penguin and beluga whale exhibits.
But for Lancaster, the star attractions were farther down on the cute scale—sea slugs and especially sea cucumbers, an animal that when threatened can expel its guts, which later regrow.
Any animal that can pull that off and survive, she reasoned, is worth studying.
“And that’s where my interest in marine science started,” says Lancaster, who is beginning her first semester of teaching at Eckerd. Born in San Diego and raised in Reno, Nevada, when she was looking for a college to attend, she applied to Eckerd and was accepted. But she chose Pepperdine University in Los Angeles instead. “I just decided I couldn’t be that far away from home,” she explains. “But Eckerd was always in the back of my mind.
Emily Lancaster, Ph.D.
Lancaster oversees eDNA collections from a boat.
“So when I was doing job searches this spring, the only job that checked all the boxes was at Eckerd. And when I read what they were looking for, they were describing me. I felt like I had come full circle. It was a very magical experience.”
After receiving a Bachelor of Science in biology from Pepperdine University, Lancaster earned her Master of Science in marine science from San Diego State University and her Ph.D. in marine biology from the University of Maine. She has served as an adjunct faculty member at Southern Maine Community College, and among her peer-reviewed publications (under her maiden name, Emily R. Pierce), is a 2024 article with Markus Frederich titled “Temperature Thresholds of Crustaceans in the Age of Climate Change,” which appeared in Frontiers in Invertebrate Physiology.
This fall, she is teaching “Biological Oceanography” and “Marine Invertebrate Biology.”
Her research will include students and will center on environmental DNA, which is DNA collected from the environment instead of an individual organism. Such eDNA is used as a tool to help detect endangered wildlife or invasive species that otherwise would go unseen.
As for anticipated student involvement, “It’s nice to have extra hands,” Lancaster says. “The hope is that the students will eventually take ownership of a project of their own.”
For now though, she and husband Stephen and Tahoe, their cattle dog–boxer mix, are adjusting to a new home and the seismic switch from a Maine to a Florida climate. “It’s been a little chaotic,” she admits. “But I always knew the Eckerd community is special. So many people here have offered to just sit down and have coffee and talk. It’s been wonderful.
“I feel very prepared for the school year.”
