If Molly Serfass-Carr ’14, youth program manager for Delaware State Parks, could take a group of students on just one experience throughout the state’s 17 parks and related natural preserves, they’d go seining.

“Seining the Bay” is a popular interactive educational program offered at Cape Henlopen State Park, where Serfass-Carr once worked as a park interpreter. A mesh seine net is stretched between two handheld wood poles, and volunteers lower the net into the water and drag it back toward the shore.

The students then roll up their sleeves and sift through the net’s contents to discover what they reveal about the bay.

“Seining is my favorite program because it provides a snapshot of the health of the Delaware Bay ecosystem, an important nursery ground for a wide variety of organisms.” 

It’s home to blue crabs, horseshoe crabs, mud snails, hermit crabs, various species of bony fish, and even sharks and dolphins. Everything caught in the seine net is quite tiny, of course, and each plays an important ecological role in the habitat.

Serfass-Carr currently works in the Dover, Del., central office of the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC). Several times a week, she travels to parks around the state, including Cape Henlopen, to support educational programs and organizations like the Youth Conservation Corps (YCC), which provides summer conservation jobs for students ages 14 to 21.

For Serfass-Carr, working with the YCC is particularly rewarding.

“Members in the program conduct meaningful environmental and park-focused work as a means of achieving personal growth,” she said. “Through service, members gain skills, confidence, and see first-hand the benefit hard work makes in providing a lasting impact on public lands and communities.”

She has seen several YCC members go on to pursue further education in environmental studies. As an Ursinus alumna, Serfass-Carr is aware of the positive impact that real-world experience can have on a young person. Her own career path began while she was still a student, with experiential learning opportunities and a dedicated faculty mentor.

She came to Ursinus with a focused interest in marine biology, having loved sharks since childhood. In pursuing that passion in college, and with the help of a mentor, Serfass-Carr discovered a broader interest in conservation biology. Former professor Rich Wallace, who now works for the Ecological Society of America, helped connect her to two key internships: first with the Philadelphia Zoo observing polar bear behavior, and then in the summer following her graduation with the Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, Fla., where she worked with manatees.

With these two internships in her pocket, Serfass-Carr landed a position at the National Aquarium in Baltimore as an interpretive aide. In 2019, she started the job at Cape Henlopen State Park and then earned a master’s degree from Miami University in Ohio (studying sharks!).

Serfass-Carr’s favorite experiences include leading the park’s “first day hikes,” which are guided hikes that take place on January 1 and typically draw a few dozen bundled-up adventurers for a trek around the tip of the cape.

For Serfass-Carr, Ursinus did more than provide a foundation of knowledge. Her experiences, in and out of the classroom, gave her the tools to cast her curiosity into the future, and, like those students in the bay, roll up her sleeves and discover the opportunities and possibilities life has to offer.