Rate My Professor Lynn Harris

Lynn Harris, holding a PhD from the University of South Carolina, serves as Professor in the Department of History at East Carolina University, with additional faculty appointments in the Program in Maritime Studies, Atlantic World Program, and Coastal Resources Management Doctoral Degree Program. Joining ECU in 2008, she has a background in nautical and terrestrial archaeology and maritime history. Harris teaches courses on underwater archaeology methods, maritime material culture, maritime landscapes, watercraft history, coastal cultural resource management, African and Caribbean maritime history and archaeology. Her teaching assignments include directing summer abroad study programs and international field schools in Namibia, South Africa, Costa Rica, and the Dominican Republic. She engages students in research projects on the southeastern seaboard, currently leading two grant-funded initiatives: one expanding African American maritime history on Portsmouth Island, North Carolina, and another conducting rapid site surveys of coastal heritage sites at risk using various technologies and tools on sites in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. Each site holds state or national historic significance and addresses conservation management challenges while linking preservation to research questions.

Harris has led a collaborative project with Costa Rican partners for the past four years, studying two shipwrecks and maritime legacies in Cahuita National Park on Costa Rica's Caribbean coast. Her scholarly contributions include authoring Patroons and Periaguas: Enslaved Watermen and Watercraft of the Lowcountry (University of South Carolina Press, 2015) and editing Sea Ports and Sea Power: African Maritime Landscapes Studies (Springer Press, 2016). She has co-authored articles such as "Preliminary Investigations of Two Shipwrecks in Cahuita Park, Costa Rica" in the International Journal of Nautical Archaeology (2018, with Nathan Richards), contributions to the Journal of Maritime Archaeology, and pieces in Coriolis: Interdisciplinary Journal of Maritime Studies. Earlier works include "South Carolina Shipyards: Labour, Logistics, Lumber and Ladies" in the Journal of Maritime Archaeology (2010) and chapters in edited volumes like Between the Devil and the Deep (2013) and Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology (2013). Harris serves as a member of the Advisory Council in Maritime Archaeology and as a Nautical Archaeology Society instructor, delivering public workshops for diving stewardship groups locally and internationally alongside colleagues. She welcomes graduate students interested in underwater archaeology, interdisciplinary research, and applied maritime history projects.