August 27, 2020 — I was 21 years old when I encountered the place where sharks and television intersect. It was my first research internship, working with a famous shark scientist I had long admired but only just met. My second week, I was on a boat with a film crew, chumming for sharks in the background while the senior scientist dispensed expertise in the foreground. At one point, the film crew suggested I sit next to my hero on camera and repeat the prompt: “So, [Dr. Hero], why did you become a shark scientist?”
For the beautiful green-eyed assistants, of course,” he replied, gesturing at me. I froze, silent, a nervous half-smile on my face.
Don’t worry,” a member of the film crew assured me afterward. “We won’t use it.” I felt a wash of relief and gratitude. It was years before I thought to wonder why I’d felt I was the one who would have looked bad if they had.
This isn’t the worst experience I’ve had as a woman in shark science, or even in the top 10. It barely makes my list at all. I remember it mainly for how small and ashamed it made me feel in the first moments of my career as a scientist; for the way his joke told me clearly who I was to him, and how he thought I fit into the story.