[4] After a 20-day, 5,000-nautical mile (9,260-km) voyage from Norfolk via the Panama Canal, Reuben Lasker arrived at San Diego, California, her home port, on 29 March 2014.

Her most advanced feature is the incorporation of United States Navy-type acoustic quieting technology to enable NOAA scientists to monitor fish populations without the ship's noise altering the behavior of the fish, including advanced quieting features incorporated into her machinery, equipment, and propeller.

Her oceanographic hydrophones are mounted on a retractable centerboard, or drop keel, that lowers scientific transducers away from the region of hull-generated flow noise, enhancing the quality of the data collected.

To take full advantage of these advanced data-gathering capabilities, she has the Scientific Sonar System, which can accurately measure the biomass of fish in a survey area.

[7] Reuben Lasker has a traction-type oceanographic winch with a maximum pull weight of 30,000 pounds (14,000 kg) which can deploy up to 4,000 meters (13,000 feet) of 17.3-mm (0..681-inch) electromechanical cable.

Like David Starr Jordan before her, Reuben Lasker operates in support of the Southwest Fisheries Science Center in La Jolla, California – a component of NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service – and primarily conducts surveys of fish, marine mammals, and sea turtles off the United States West Coast and in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean.

[4][5] Her commissioning in 2014 freed the NOAA fisheries survey vessel NOAAS Bell M. Shimada (R 227) from these duties, freeing Bell M. Shimada to focus on other high-priority projects – including studies of the California Current Large Marine Ecosystem and of salmon populations all along the U.S. West Coast – that prior to Reuben Lasker's arrival had been allocated no dedicated sea time.