Shark Science
Diversity in Science
As she carves out her own niche in shark science, Ph.D. biology student Amani Webber-Schultz is equally focused on widening the pool of researchers who will join her in scholarly pursuit of the apex predator.
Nearly three years ago, Webber-Schultz and three other Black scientists founded the nonprofit Minorities in Shark Sciences (MISS) to boost diversity in the field, in part by fully funding hands-on research experiences for gender minorities of color who struggle financially to break in.
“Getting field experience in marine sciences is often pay-to-play, and it’s very expensive to get your foot in the door. A few days of introductory field training aboard a research vessel can quickly add up to thousands of dollars per person,” says Webber-Schultz, MISS’s CFO, who studies shark tail biomechanics and scale morphology in NJIT’s FluidLoco Lab.
The nonprofit began to take shape after she met three other up-and-coming Black female marine biologists — Jasmin Graham, Jaida Elcock and Carlee Jackson — through social media. “None of us had met another Black shark scientist before, so we kind of jokingly said to each other that we should start a club.”
Founded on Juneteenth in 2020, that “club” raised $15,000 in its first two weeks, largely from individual donors, which initially funded all-expenses-paid weekend workshops for two small cohorts that summer in Miami through a partnership with the Field School Foundation. It has since registered as a 501(c)(3).
The organization has since grown to over 400 members from more than 30 countries, raised $500,000, and expanded field research opportunities in Naples, Tampa and Sarasota in Florida, Woods Hole and North Chatham in Massachusetts, the Bahamas, South Africa, Mozambique, and now California, through a collaboration with the Monterey Bay Aquarium and the University of California at Merced. MISS pays for participants’ internship and training fees, visas and travel expenses, while also providing small stipends.
“It’s been rewarding to see many of these participants go on to do shark-related projects and get accepted into graduate school,” says Webber-Schultz. “None came to the workshops with previous research experience, but they took their training and ran with it.”
While the field opportunities are currently restricted to those 18 years old and up, MISS has also stepped into the K-12 education space with an array of new programs, including a virtual course on sharks, skates and rays, called Gill Guardians, which pitches units such as shark anatomy, environmental challenges and research techniques to different age groups. The group’s book, “Minorities in Shark Sciences: Diverse Voices in Shark Research,” was published in November by CRC Press.
Global partners such as National Geographic and Nat Geo WILD now feature researchers from MISS’s roster of experts as guest presenters in their television programming. “I hope we can influence kids out there who get fascinated by these shows, and can see there are scientists in the field that look like they do and who they can look up to,” Webber-Schultz says.
She studies how sharks’ tails propel them powerfully through the water, how their scales reduce drag forces and how the two anatomical features work together. Because many species are too large to study in her urban lab, she is building models to better understand their biomechanics.
“People understand so little about sharks other than the few facts the media chooses to present,” she says. “There is such a disconnect between what scientists and the public know.
I want to be part of bridging that gap.”
Caption: Amani Webber-Schultz (left) helped create a nonprofit to boost diversity in the field of shark science.