Education:
A.S., Westchester Community College
B.A., SUNY New Paltz
M.S., SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry
Ph.D., SUNY Binghamton
Contact Information:
Research Associate, Clean Water Institute
Areas of Expertise: the Reproductive Biology of Freshwater Turtles, Salamander Ecology, and Stream and Wetland Restoration
Current Projects: Managing a web site for the Keystone Stream Team, Revision of the Natural Stream Channel Design Guidelines for Pennsylvania Waterways, Developing Natural Stream Channel Design databases for storing and retrieving project information and reference reach data, Assessing the Status of the Eastern Hellbender Salamander in the Susquehanna River West Branch Watershed
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.
His personal website can be found at http://www.lycoming.edu/~petokas/