Marine Science Center of Northeastern University

Nathan W. "Doc" Riser
Professor Emeritus of Marine Biology

1920 - 2006

"To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children...to leave the world a better place....to know even one life breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded."
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Doc Riser died on Wednesday July 26, 2006 at the age of 86. Doc was a graduate student at Hopkins Marine Laboratory after WWII. His doctoral thesis centered on the life history of shark tapeworms. It is a larval shark tapeworm that forms the heart of all true Indian Ocean pearls. At Hopkins, he was trained in the milieu of "Cannery Row" and was the organizer of Ed Ricketts Funeral. Doc came to NU as Biology Department Chair in 1957 from Fisk University in Tenessee. Prior to that, he had teaching and research affiliations with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, the Marine Biological Laboratories at Woods Hole, Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology and University Of New Hampshire.

Doc Riser served as chair until 1967 when he became the first director of the Marine Science Center. The Marine Science Center became a nationally recognized center for marine organismal education and research under Doc’s direction. He served as Director until his retirement in 1985. Doc Riser was also an advisor to the Stratton Commission on Marine Science, Engineering and Resources (http://www.lib.noaa.gov/edocs/stratton/title.html) in 1968 under the Johnson Administration. One of the outcomes of this Commission was the establishment of NOAA.

During his tenure at MSC, every graduating student was treated to a reading of "The Charge". You too can read it here

Since his retirement, Doc Riser re-focused on his research on the biology and systematics of Dorvilleid, Nerillid, Protodrilid and Syllid Polychaetes of the Gulf of Maine; also non-Otoplanid Proseriate turbellarians from the region. At the time of his death, he was completing work on Nemerteans from the intertidal of New Zealand, and the description of some of Verrill's Nemerteans from New England that have not been seen since he described them.

Doc has described many new species of marine worms and has had other new species named in his honor by students and collegues.

Doc Riser also served in WWII in the Medical Corps in the Pacific Theater. He was present for the battles of Tarawa and Saipan

Education:
PhD. 1947 Stanford University
The morphology and systematic position of some little known Tetraphyllideans
Tage Skogsberg (1887-1951), advisor.

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Testimonials

Nathan W. "Doc" Riser Professor Emeritus of Marine Biology

Nathan W. "Doc" Riser
Professor Emeritus of Marine Biology