Spotlight on Minorities in Shark Science
/BY CARA SCHAEFER
When you picture a marine scientist, what comes to mind? Minorities in Shark Science (MISS) is hoping to change that and also make some discoveries along the way.
We spoke with President and co-founder Jasmin Graham about building community, science, and fishing for sharks.
Photo courtesy Jasmin Graham
OUT THERE: What personally drew you to study sharks?
JASMIN GRAHAM: I kind of stumbled upon sharks. I was majoring in marine biology, and we had what’s called a “research matchmaking day” at my university, which is basically speed dating, except for research labs. I went to that event and was looking at all the stuff that everyone always is really excited about, like sea turtles and coral. As I was leaving, I literally ran into the person that would become my advisor and mentor in undergrad, because he was late, as he often is, because he’s always slightly disheveled.
So I ran into him, and I helped him get his table set up. He was really excited and showing me all the stuff that he works on with sharks and evolution, and I was like, “Huh, I’ve never thought about sharks like that. It seems a little random but I’m about it.”
And that made me excited, but he also didn’t have any funding to pay for an undergraduate student, so I was like, “Well that’s a bummer”. And he said, “But let me get your email and I’ll let you know if I come into some funding.”
He ended up being a research mentor at College of Charleston’s marine lab that next summer, so I worked with him and got super excited about sharks. I tried a bunch of other different things too, but I was like, “Well, I’m always comparing everything to sharks, so maybe I should just do that.”
OT: How was Minorities in Shark Science formed?
JG: We met each other on Twitter during Black Birders Week. They had a hashtag #blackinnature and people were tweeting pictures of them in nature, and I tweeted that with a picture of me doing shark science in the field. And came across Carlee, who had tweeted a picture of her doing shark science, and I was like, “Woah! Wait a minute!” Because up until this point I had only met one black shark scientist, and he was a man. And so to see another black woman shark scientist was like “Woah!”
So obviously I responded to her tweet, and she’s like, “Woah, who knew, there are two of us!” And then Amani popped in and was like, “Make that three,” and Jaida was like, “Me too!” And so we kind of jokingly were like, “We should form a club.” And then we got really excited by it and realized that we felt really isolated, and we didn’t realize how isolated we were until we found that community, and so we wanted to make sure we gave that community to other people.
That’s how this all started, and it really just grew and grew as we saw how excited people were about it and how much people needed it. We grew to meet the need and so now we’re over 160 members in 15 different countries.
In addition to workshops, we have internships, and we’ve built community. We have monthly Zoom calls where we bring in a guest speaker and they teach us about something, some important professional development, or we do networking or have a Halloween party or whatever. It’s gotten to be this close community that’s really exciting.
OT: Your website mentions the importance of hands-on research experiences. What is studying sharks in the field like?
JG: It’s kind of like any other fishing, until you catch something. So it’s a lot of baiting, waiting around, pulling in the line or the gill net and being like, “Huh, I wonder if we caught anything.”
Sometimes it’s like, “Aw man, we didn’t catch anything,” and then other times it’s like, “Woah there’s a shark!” And that gets the adrenaline pumping. Especially if it’s a big shark, you get really excited about it.
You go into this hyper focus mode where you’re like, “Okay, I need to make sure I get all the samples, I need to make sure everyone knows what they’re doing, and everyone’s where they’re supposed to be.”
And it’s high stakes because some sharks are really fragile, and keeping them out of water they get very stressed very quickly, so it’s trying to move fast, but you’re also trying to get all your samples and do it safely for you and the shark. I would say it’s like fishing with higher stakes.
PHoto courtesy Jasmin Graham
OT: Has starting MISS had an impact on your own experiences in marine science?
JG: Definitely. Starting MISS has been super impactful in my life.
Hearing people have similar stories to me makes me feel super valid in how I feel and my experiences. I also feel like we have a really strong collective voice now.
I go post on the Slack like, “Hey this happened to me,” and there’s a whole bunch of other people that are like, “Something similar happened to me too and that’s not okay.”
You feel more confident speaking out about it, because it is happening to so many other people, and you don’t feel so alone or like you’re overreacting, because other people are having the same reactions. That’s really nice to be in a situation where no one questions your reaction as an overreaction, which happens a lot when there aren’t people that have the same life experiences as you.
Having us all be together makes me feel more empowered to speak out against things, because I know that I’m not just speaking for me. I’m speaking for this whole community of people. It turns into, “I’m not going to let this person say this to me, because I wouldn’t want them to say this to another MISS member.” It gives you that drive to want to make the world better because you have all of these people that you want to create a better world for. It makes you want to fight.
OT: How would you like to see Minorities in Shark Science evolve over time?
JG: Ultimately, I’d love to create a scientific community where MISS is no longer needed. I want every place, every space to be like MISS. Where you can come and you can say, “I feel this way,” and not have anyone say, “You’re overreacting,” or, “That’s not true.” And then also be able to look around you and see people like you. What I really want is not necessarily for MISS to evolve but for the culture to, for MISS to change the culture. To make it so that every place in science feels like MISS does for women of color.
OT: How do you think the scientific community can be more inclusive of women of color?
JG: We need a more equitable way to access science, especially marine science, which is really inaccessible to a lot of people for a variety of reasons.
Even before you get into the intersection of being a woman and being a person of color, there’s other things like certain school systems don’t have access to strong STEM education. People don’t have opportunities to go out and experience the ocean or things like that, either because they live in a landlocked state or because they live really close to water; they just can’t get to it. A lot of people don’t realize that just because you live in a coastal city doesn’t mean you’ve ever been to the beach, especially if there’s not a bus route that goes to the beach.
Also we’ve got to stop with this nonsense of unpaid internships and demanding people work for free. I don’t know why people think it’s okay to have someone work for free, just because they’re a student. For some reason we decided people that are students that don’t have any money, obviously they should work for free. So that cuts out everyone who doesn’t have that financial cushion to be able to go galavanting around on the ocean for free.
And then even after you get past all of that and you manage to get into science, you’re still going to have people that act like you don’t belong there. And so we’ve got to change our attitudes. And when I say change our attitudes I mean not just what we say to people, because there’s not very many people that say bad things. It’s how you act, how you interact with people, like if you’re always talking over the woman in the room or you totally ignore the person of color whenever they share a really unique idea. There’s a lot of that. And also people making comments like, “We don’t have people of color in here because people of color don’t want to be here or they don’t meet our standards.”
I’ve had people say, “Black people don’t do water. That’s why they're not marine scientists,” or “All first-generation Americans aren’t really good writers so they don’t do well in school and so that’s why they’re not here.” All of these things that people attribute to someone’s racial identity that has nothing to do with their intelligence or their capability. But it’s super ingrained in us, because everyone wants to believe that we live in an equitable system, and everyone wants to believe that everyone has equal opportunities, and if there aren’t people at the table it’s because they didn’t earn it.
And so whenever you start bringing people to the table that haven’t been at the table, everyone assumes that it’s because they made the qualifications easier to let those people in. It doesn’t feel good to have someone treat you like you didn’t earn your place there and don’t belong. I think those are the big challenges that we’re facing right now.
OT: I know we are still learning so much about the ocean and marine life. Are there any questions you hope to answer about sharks, or maybe hope that another MISS member will eventually be able to answer, with the support that you’re providing?
JG: There are tons of things that I want to know about sharks! With a lot of species, we don’t know how long they live, we don’t know where they mate, we don’t know where they give birth or lay their eggs. Which is really important information to know, especially with so many species being endangered and vulnerable.
Even really big species like whale sharks — I mean they’re huge; how do we not know where they mate? How do we not know where their pups are born? They’re ginormous.
Stuff like that is really important, because if they’re going to pup or mate somewhere, and they’re all in this big aggregation, and that’s also where somebody’s fishing or there’s an oil leakage or a lot of boat traffic, then they’re getting slaughtered from all this stuff and we don’t know. That’s a problem. That’s my big mystery that I would like to solve.
Image courtesy Jasmin Graham
To learn more about Minorities in Shark Science, visit their website, and follow them on Instagram @miss_elasmo. You can also support them on Patreon.
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
