Carlee Jackson isn’t afraid of sharks. Quite the opposite. She thinks they’re cute. She also thinks that they’re incredibly important to the ocean ecosystem.
Jackson, a graduate student at Nova Southeastern University in marine science, said she believes shark science is such an important and exciting field that more minority girls need to be given opportunities to enter the traditionally male, mostly white, field of marine biology.
This year, she was inspired by events going on around the country to collaborate with other young Black women in the field to do what they could to create opportunities for more minority girls to get into marine biology. Protests around the country surrounding racism prompted them to think of what they could do to make a difference in their own field of study.
“I co-founded an organization called Minorities in Shark Science (MISS), for Black girl shark scientists,” Jackson said. “We actually met over Twitter, and we’ve never met physically. We all have done Zoom together, but that’s it.”
“We decided to start a club, which turned into an organization,” she said. “Our goal is to increase diversity in shark science, encourage more women of color to get into the shark science world. Growing up, I watched Shark Week (a week of summer programming on Discovery channel) and it was just a lot of white men. And it still is.”
The MISS group has been raising money through Patreon (a subscription content service) and through its own website to create more opportunities for minorities in shark sciences. The goal was $25,000, and in just a matter of weeks, they received the full amount.
“With the funds we’ve raised, we have two workshops coming up for March and April in 2021. We’re making the workshops specifically for women of color who are interested in shark science,” Jackson said. That’s where our workshop money is going toward. We’re trying to break down another barrier for minorities in shark science, which is finances.”
Jackson said that, especially in the field of shark science, people have to pay to get field experience, which she added is true for marine biology in general.
“We’re going to make sure the experience is completely free, so that they don’t have to pay for the trip or the experience,” she said.
A lifelong fascination with sharks
Jackson is from Detroit. So her dreams of working with sharks did not come from her surroundings. She said she isn’t exactly sure why it started, but she does remember when.
“I was just about 5 or 6 years old,” she said. “My mom was homeschooling me and we went to a book fair. I remember I saw this book that specifically said ‘sharks.’ I decided that I just wanted to read that book. I have no idea why, but I was drawn to that book.”
That was the turning point for her.
“I read the book, and I was hooked,” Jackson said. “The sharks scared me, but at the same time I was curious. At that age, I told my parents that I wanted to work with sharks. And it has stuck my entire life.”
Her parents were supportive, even if they didn’t fully understand why.
“They just saw that it was something that I really wanted to pursue,” she said. “I don’t even come from a science family. My mom’s a musician and my dad’s a lawyer.”
Once Jackson was old enough to set her goals for college, she set her sights on being near the ocean so that she could study the real thing.
“I decided to go to Florida Atlantic University because it was close to the ocean, and they had a really good Marine Biology program,” she said. “I also was an athlete and was recruited to the swim team at FAU.”
First contact
Growing up in the Midwest, Jackson didn’t have access to oceans, so she had to live vicariously through texts, literature, and, of course, Shark Week on TV.
“The most that I did in high school and before that was a lot of reading, because there’s no ocean in Michigan. Not exactly any sharks there,” she said. “I would always check out books on sharks.”
So the first time she saw a real shark was a memorable moment.
“When I was at FAU, we went snorkeling one day, there was a little nurse shark under a rock, and I thought it was the cutest little thing,” she said, smiling. “People don’t usually think of sharks as cute, but a lot of shark researchers think so.
“But the first time I saw a real shark was when I tagged my first lemon shark with the lab at Nova Southeastern. I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, it’s a shark!’ I was just so excited! I just remember feeling so happy.”
Jackson’s encounters with sharks started small but scaled up.
“In terms of big sharks in the water, I was in my study area in Belize on a gap-year program called Frontiers, and a great hammerhead decided to cruise by,” she said. “That was probably one of the coolest experiences I’ve had with sharks because it was so big!
“We locked eyes and I thought, ‘Oh my God, this thing could kill me!’ It was very humbling and I got a better respect for them because you realize this thing could kill you, but it’s not going to.”
The importance of sharks to the oceans
Jackson’s passion for sharks extends to the bigger picture in the oceans.
“Sharks are a huge part of the whole ocean ecosystem,” she said. “If we take away sharks, there’s going to be chaos in the food chain.”
The popular conception of sharks is of a fish that is constantly on the hunt and a danger to humans.
“In the movies, we like to show them as things that are hunting all the time,” she said. “But sharks are really more scavengers, not killers. They keep our oceans clean, because they’re mostly cleaning out the impaired fish.
“Sharks also keep a lot of their prey populations in check,” she said. “The usual prey, if allowed to grow into oversized populations, would eat algae and overconsume. Sharks keep everything in balance.”
But aren’t sharks an imminent danger to people in the ocean?
“Usually, with smaller sharks, the attacks have been provoked,” Jackson said. “With other attacks on surfers and situations like that, it’s usually a case of mistaken identity.
“Sharks don’t rely on their sight, they actually rely on smell,” she said. “They have another sense called like a lateral line. They can sense vibrations and electrical signals in the water. So if you’re giving off signals that say ‘I’m the fish that’s dying’ or something like that, you may get approached.”
Jackson said that shark science plays an important role in making sure that shark populations remain healthy by studying them in their environment.
“Most of the research for sharks is about minimizing any negative effects that humans have on them,” she said. “And, if we do have effects on them, how can we make it better for them. So overall, we’re just trying to make sure our shark populations don’t go extinct. In return, that’s contributing to ocean health, which has a positive effect on climate change.”
Steps for the future
Jackson and her shark scientist cohorts want their efforts to have a long-term effect.
“We are planning on making MISS a nonprofit organization,” she said. “But we want our main goal to be a resource, mostly for early-career scientists and grad students or people coming right out of undergrad. We want to eventually travel to different places, collaborate with a lot of different programs, and get our face out there to let other girls know that you can do this.”
Jackson has a message for other minority girls who want to pursue shark or marine science.
“If there’s something that you’re passionate about, and you really want to do it, just go for it,” she said. “Don’t make any excuses like, ‘There’s no one there that looks like me.’ You can be the first one.
“If you want to go into shark science, and you’re a woman of color or you’re some other minority and you don’t see representation, your goal should be to be that representation and not to get discouraged. Because if it’s something you really want to do, you’ll find a way to do it,” she said.
Minorities in Shark Sciences information
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