When he arrived at Lycoming College, Peter Petokas began teaching Human Anatomy courses to Biology majors and Biology General Education courses to non-majors. Within a year, Peter moved from teaching as a faculty member to a research position in the Clean Water Institute where he became the first Research Associate in the history of Lycoming College.

Peter's work in the Clean Water Institute is primarily in the area of stream restoration incorporating elements of Natural Stream Channel Design. He works closely with members of the Keystone Stream Team, a multidisciplinary team of academics, hydrologists, geologists, engineers, stream designers, and Watershed Association members. Current projects include developing an inventory of stream restoration projects in Pennsylvania, constructing an online database of reference reach data, and maintaining the Keystone Stream Team website.

Peter's graduate and postgraduate research involved studies of turtle population ecology and reproductive biology. His current zoological interests include research on the giant hellbender salamander, an inhabitant of streams and rivers in Pennsylvania. Funded by the PA Fish Boat Commission, Peter and students from Lycoming College are surveying tributaries of the Susquehanna River for hellbenders and conducting long-term studies of behavior, population dynamics, reproduction, growth, food habits, and genetic diversity.