Andrew Lewin interviews Jasmine Graham, President and CEO of Minorities in Shark Science. Jasmine shares insights from her book "Sharks Don't Sink: Adventures of a Rogue Shark Scientist," detailing her career journey in shark science.
Tune in to learn about her experiences, challenges, and successes as she navigates her career in marine conservation.
Links for Jasmine Graham: Website: www.misselasmo.org Twitter: https://x.com/MISS_Elasmo Jasmin's Twitter: https://x.com/Elasmo_Gal
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Jasmine Graham's journey from academia to running a non-profit organization showcases the significant impact of personal experiences and challenges in shaping career paths and advocacy efforts. Initially, Jasmine's interest in marine science was sparked by her family's fishing background, particularly her grandmother and father's love for fishing. This early exposure to the ocean and fishing instilled a curiosity in Jasmine about marine life and led her to attend a marine science summer camp in high school.
The pivotal moment in Jasmine's career journey was when she discovered at the summer camp that studying fish could be a viable career option. This realization opened up a new path for her, leading her to pursue marine biology in college. Jasmine's academic journey took her to the College of Charleston, where she had the opportunity to conduct research on sharks, skates, and rays. Her experience at a small liberal arts college allowed her to build close relationships with professors and engage in hands-on research projects.
Transitioning to graduate school at Florida State University, Jasmine focused on studying smalltooth sawfish, an endangered species. Despite challenges in adapting to the larger university environment and the city of Tallahassee, Jasmine's passion for marine conservation and policy drove her to excel in her research and academic pursuits. After completing her master's degree, Jasmine joined the Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, where she played a key role in developing a program to broaden participation in marine science. Her experience at Mote highlighted the importance of mentorship and support for underrepresented groups in the field.
The founding of Minorities in Shark Science (MISS) in June 2020 was a response to the racial injustices and incidents of discrimination that gained widespread attention, particularly in the Black birder community. Inspired by the need for diversity and inclusion in marine science, Jasmine leveraged her personal experiences and challenges to create a platform that supports gender minorities of color in shark science. Jasmine's journey from academia to leading MISS exemplifies how individual experiences, challenges, and a commitment to equity and diversity can drive career paths and advocacy efforts in marine science and conservation. Her transition from a research-focused role to a leadership position in a non-profit organization reflects her dedication to creating a more inclusive and supportive environment for underrepresented groups in the field.
I have the opportunity in my line of work to speak to a lot of great people about their careers whether they're asking for advice on their careers or they're telling me about their journey of their careers and how they got to be where they are. Now a lot of the people that I get to speak to have you know had a huge career like a very long career already and they may or may not be close to retirement and they'll write a biography on them so an autobiography about their career but in this case the person we're interviewing today Jasmine Graham who's the current president CEO of minorities in shark science also known as miss she has written a book about her career up to date and let's just be honest she's just scratching the surface on her career and we're going to find out all the different things that happened to her during her career the good and the bad and how she adapted towards those good and bad and how she got to where she is today that's on this episode of the how to protect the ocean podcast let's start the show. Hey everybody welcome back to another exciting episode of the how to protect the ocean podcast. I'm your host Andrew Lewin this is the podcast where you find out what's happening with the ocean how you can speak up for the ocean and what you can do to live for a better ocean by taking action. Now today's episode we got a great one for you today we have Jasmine Graham the current president and CEO of the minorities in shark science also known as miss she is here to talk about her book shark stone sink adventures of a rogue shark scientist this is a great book I had a chance to flip through it I'm currently reading it cover to cover right now and it is it is something you want to read it's the journey of someone who goes through the trials and tribulations of a marine scientist and trying to find her career and ends up being more entrepreneurial by running a nonprofit organization that's designed to just sort of help minorities in shark science or minorities in marine science in general to be able to have opportunities where they can discover marine science and that marine science is actually in marine conservation are actually fields of study that you can work as a job and Jasmine tells us about how she discovered that marine science was a job that she can do and something that she discovered in high school but it was late and it was at a camp sort of like a random thing and then she discovered that it was an opportunity to work in that field and she just followed it ever since she tells us about that journey about going to a small liberal arts college first instead of the big Duke University and also going to a with the adaptation of the differences between a small liberal arts college and a larger college that is huge of an impact and what she like what were the advantages and disadvantage of those colleges especially who she got to work with it was a very interesting interview and then she goes on and talk about how she chose the place where she wanted to live and then chose a place where she wanted to work really interesting way of doing things especially in career journeys where you know a lot of times we dictate where we live based on the jobs that we apply to so very interesting interview i want you to enjoy this interview with jasmine grand president CEO of minorities in shark science and i will talk to you after hey jasmine welcome to the how to protect the ocean podcast are you ready to talk about minorities in shark science for sure right on i'm super excited about this interview this is an interview that i've wanted to do for quite some time but i'm very happy we're doing it right now because we are here not only to talk about you jasmine but talk about the book that you've written it's called it's called sharks don't sink adventures of a rogue shark scientist by jasmine gram um jasmine you have had quite the career so far and i feel like it's just getting started we're just uh you know just diving into the surface of the ocean with this with this book and there's so much more uh to that you have that you are going to be able to do in your career and i'm looking forward to being able to to watch that as i as we go through this wonderful thing we call life but i'm excited today to talk about your career up to now talk about some of the things in the book that i feel are really important to talk about uh and this is going to be a lot of fun so before we we get into all that uh jasmine why don't you just let the audience know who you are and what you do well my name is jasmine gram and i am a marine biologist i study shark skates and rays and i am also a co-founder and serving as the president and CEO of minorities in shark sciences which is a nonprofit dedicated to supporting gender minorities of color who are interested in the study of sharks and the relatives i i love that i love that i i feel like it's it's an organization that i feel is a long time coming and i'm looking forward to to discussing um how it all started in in 2020 we had uh one of your good friends carly jackson on the program to talk about miss and just it was at its beginning it was just just starting to get running and the workshop were being discussed and being advertised and i'm looking forward to seeing how that's kind of evolved in the next in the last four years because this is something that i've been wanting to see a lot i think a lot of us need to see uh for for a long time and and it's just been fun to watch uh the amount of of people you've been able to help and and even you mentioned in the book how many people feel more comfortable to go to things like conferences and things like meetups um and i just think that's amazing so we're going to get into all that let's just go from the beginning how did you get interested in in marine science or just in the ocean in general well i come from a fishing family so my grandma evolina left a fish my dad loves to fish people in my family were just were fishing folk so i was always connected to the ocean through fishing so some of my best memories are fishing on the pier and riddle beach with my dad so the ocean's always been a part of me i got a scientific curiosity though where i was asking questions about why are the fish here how do we know that they're here you know we knew with regularity i mean to the point where my grandma could tell from the way the wind was blowing where the fish were going to be and so i'm like what why why are fish affected by wind what's going on there and so i had all these questions and i wanted to know more and so then whenever i was in high school and i got the opportunity to attend a summer camp and it was a marine science summer camp and this is the first time anyone had ever told me hey by the way this is a job there are people in this world that get paid to study fish i was like what that's exactly what i want to do i want to get paid to ask questions about fish even though that was an option so that's that's how i got here that's amazing now growing up in riddle beach you know it's kind of a special place a lot of people travel there to to enjoy you know the beach and to enjoy the ocean what was what were your favorite fish to catch or what were you catching out in the ocean or was it in the ocean or was in lakes nearby ocean yeah we we fished off of here um in the ocean and we're big spot people um spot is the spot run past Myrtle beach and like back in the day before i was even a thought my dad used to catch the left and right unfortunately the population has kind of decreased a lot um and so they're not as as common as they were but they're still pretty common still pretty fun to catch when they're running past Myrtle beach um my dad's favorite fish to eat is mullet which is funny because most people think that's a trash fish and people don't usually like to eat mullet but my dad loves mullet everybody has a taste for something right i love it i love it now um you know you mentioned your grandmother loved fishing and i think that's that's really interesting especially you know as a granddaughter seeing your grandmother fish it kind of allowed you to see oh well you know other women fish but it it doesn't seem like that happened a lot you see more women fishers now but you know back in the day when your grandmother grew up how does she get in into fishing well actually i mean a lot of people fish in um our community in Myrtle beach um we're coastal people and most of the food that they ate came from the ocean so everyone was fishing oh no if you didn't fish you didn't eat so it wasn't really a gendered thing it's like uh we gotta get food um so yeah i would say that it's not super uncommon uh at least back at that time for for women to be fishing um because it was it was source of food and and i mean in the even in the traditional gender roles like women's role is providing food um so when fishing is tied to food it becomes within the domain of women even in a gendered society um so yeah it's something that in our culture isn't particularly gendered that was something that i found out was gendered whenever i left that that cultural and that that family um but yeah it's it's really interesting and in the low country of south carolina and you know among the black community and the golic each community it's it's everyone fishes it's coming practice nice do you still fish now i do yes um i don't get to fish for fun as much because i'm fishing for research a lot more um true but i do fish for fun when i can and um i owe my dad um a tarpon fishing trip he's never fish tarpon so i owe him a tarpon fishing trip next time he comes down so we're gonna we're gonna do that there you go that sounds like a very difficult fish to fish it's just sounds tough is that a tougher fish to to get on board uh yes they are very i'll say acrobatic they are acrobatic yes yes yes we have them in the i live in toronto we have in the rippleies aquarium here and uh we got to do a back when when one of the conferences was in toronto david shiftman i think you know david as well and he took us like we did a sort of a behind the scenes tour and we got to see them feed the tarpon and my kids got to feed the tarpon and they are a lot tougher and you know bigger than you think when you see them up close so i think that's uh it's an interesting that'd be a that'd be a fun trip to to do i think that'd be that'd be a lot of fun uh so you're in high school and you all of a sudden you discover that there's a job for this uh so was it you know just a one-track mind from then on you're just like okay like you know this marine science fishery science i'm gonna ask all these questions i'm gonna be able to do all this research where the questions are already starting to flow in and and did that help you decide where you want to go to college definitely i got back from that camp and i mean i was a sophomore in in high school and i went to that camp it was the summer after my sophomore year so it was around the time that you're supposed to start thinking about what's next after high school anyways so i immediately went and got you know the big books where you look and you find the majors and you find all the schools that i'm highlighting i got my notes and everything and i go to my mom and i say here are all the schools that offer marine science my mom says i don't know what that is but i'm glad you're trying to go to college that sounds great um and um basically went through the list and was like all right let's keep it in the southeast let's not go it's not go wild uh so i ended up applying to um a couple schools in south calina um a couple schools in north calina in a school in florida um so we were southeast she's like all right let's back it wild still like within a drive so you can you can get there within a drive right yes and which which causes you decide on it i end up going to college with trolston in trolston south calina um which was ended up being a great school for me it was small it's a small liberal arts college um i ended up getting a full ride so that made a easy decision for me um it was at the end there it was between duke and college with trolston um and even though i got a scholarship for duke there was still like a ten thousand dollar gap because duke is a very expensive school um yes it is yes it is it's very expensive um and i i funny story this is a total sidebar but i also applied yeah applied to duke in uh for my masters and got in and got a scholarship and there was also a gap and i was like why are you so expensive um so i got into duke twice and both times i was like you're too expensive no um i did eventually finally make it to duke uh for my nonprofit certificate oh nice you finally have something from duke um but yeah uh so i went to college at trolston got to go for free got to live by the ocean uh trolston and mertle beach have very similar cultures um and and eco systems and so that was really cool and uh so i really enjoyed there and because it was such a small school i just really got to know my professors really well and got to do undergraduate research and um yeah it was great i loved uh my professors and my classes and everything um yeah and in the book i talked about some you know unfortunate things that happened in trolston while i was um at college trolston but overall it was it was a good experience i think i think with every college slash university you know there's there's obviously room to grow and unfortunately uh some of those some of those things happen to a lot of people you know unfortunately it's it tends to be women and minorities that tend to have like the like the statistics are a lot higher and and that's unfortunate and and you know people need to continue to pressure universities to to continue to to eliminate and and seek to eliminate that kind of stuff that happens um but it's yeah it's one of those things where it's it's always disappointing to hear um but on the flip side of it too you know you you have a lot of great experiences you know getting to know your professors um did you have that idea when you went to the to the school that you'd be able to get to know your professors that well and be able to work with them closely uh no because my idea of college was from movies and movies don't do a very good job of portraying college no um and i will say that when i went to grad school and went to florida state and went to like a big state institution i was like oh this is what the movies are talking about um but yeah my small liberal arts college experience was not like that at all uh so i didn't expect to you know basically the the department marine biology was like 35 people feel like so so we were all just like in class together so we all had the same classes and we're just kind of like going through together so you walk from one class to the next class and look it's the same people um and the only people that changed were professors and um so i mean we were so small that we actually had a professor um that made hand made us little seashell little um like uh medals to wear at graduation yeah like made one for age of us because it was such a small group of people that he was like yeah i'm just gonna make you all seashell like things to wear at graduation and it's like thanks gorka that's very nice of you um that's very nice but yeah you can you can only do that when there's 30 people that's true yeah yeah you can't do it when there's 400 or 1200 if people graduating yeah that's awesome so when you went you graduate with your undergrad had a great time you know got to do some research what is the type of research that you're able to do for as an undergraduate there uh i did a lot of research while i was there so i mean my main research was the sharks so i had what i like to refer to as a scientific meatcute uh with by who then became one of my big mentors dr gavin naylor uh where i literally ran into him because he was late uh for a research matchmaking day which if you know gavin sorry gavin i'm saying this on a podcast but this is not a secret he's late to everything and slightly disheveled all the time and so so we like ran into each other and his papers went flying and i was helping him pick him up and i kind of looked at the papers like oh this stuff looks cool what's up with this it started talking and ended up working with him and doing evolution of hammerhead sharks and studying them and that was super cool because they got to learn some genetics which is funny because i started working in a genetics lab had never taken a genetics course before he was like ah you'll learn well you'll learn as we go um and then uh i learned how to do digital segmentation which is really cool it's basically like dissecting on the computer and it really tapped into my pc gamer inside me because i i am a pc gamer um i end up being really good at it because i spend a lot of time clicking and it's a thing that i do often in my free time um so i was really good at it uh and so i got to do that that was a lot of fun um i got to do some things with my chemistry professor and learning a program called closed all and uh blast and looking at genetic sequences i actually did a lot of genetic stuff before i even took a genetic class um and then um i also did some microplastics work that's how i discovered that i hate microscopes so that is a fun thing about me microscopes and me don't get along uh they kind of give me a headache and i was using an epifluorescent microscope so i also had to sit in a dark room for hours at a time staring at a microscope looking for little bits of blowing plastic um so i was like that was okay i guess but never doing that again yeah um i also uh worked with the marine mammal stranding network doing necropsies oh that's awesome uh discovered that marine mammals smell really bad and uh i don't want to work with things that have diseases that can pass to me because it was very stressful all of the like ppe and like if you don't wear gloves you can catch a disease and i'm like ah fish don't really give you diseases no that's something they never talk about it when people are like i want to be a marine mammal scientist and things like that you never talk about how you have to be careful of getting disease if you're working hands-on with marine mammals i i never even thought about that yeah so yeah um and then i did some coastal acidification work um with the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center uh that was fun because i learned how to build things uh because we were basically building something that would measure co2 and water uh and it was really fun because it was just like a bunch of PVC pipes and us just trying to figure out how to make things work and uh then it was like an otter box with like wires and it kind of looked like a bomb and it counted down and there were flashing numbers i was like goodness if anyone ever walks in and sees this like sitting on a counter they're gonna call it a bomb threat uh but it was really cool just getting to like build things and tinker and all that stuff and figure out how to make it work so that was fun so you this is all in your undergraduate yes that's honor and that's even before you took a genetics course apparently that's that's amazing so let me ask you this when you did did you finally take a genetic course i did finally take a genetics course uh i think it was like and you must have been like way ahead yeah you must have been like way ahead you'd be like i know all this stuff i've done this like it was a very boring class for me haha been there done that well maybe that's a good thing because genetics could be difficult for some people and and if you're already done all the work and you already know all the background you're like oh yeah this is this is easy uh i love that so so you were you know you mentioned right off the bat you were doing shark work and obviously you work and you know you work in the lasso ranks right now was that always an interest from the get-go you know once you realize in that that camp in high school that you can you know study marine fish was it was it always sharks that got your curiosity the most no not at all um i sharks weren't even on my radar uh we didn't really interact with sharks on the pier our interaction was if somebody has a shark on the line you're reeling in because that shark is about to tangle up everybody's life like it is a mess you do not want any parts of that um and so it was kind of like sharks at this thing and they show up and they're kind of unfortunate and then you're like okay now there's a shark okay cool you're gonna just release it that was fun for no one um and so so i was like whatever sharks insist but i was not a person that was like afraid of sharks i they weren't it wasn't like i was like oh god sharks are so scary um i had seen sharks i had seen people catch sharks um to me they were like slightly irritating they were like okay this is kind of like a gnat like it's not and it's not yeah harmful but they're like kind of annoying when you don't really want them yeah um and so i hadn't really thought anything about them i hadn't thought about them until that scientific meet cute with Gavin um and then i started working with them i was like wait a minute these are really cool animals and i started studying their evolution i was like what hundreds of millions of years old they haven't really changed like you know how rare it is to get something that right from the get-go seriously especially in like physiology and biology right you never really see that at all that's uh and they last longer than dinosaurs everybody's always you know looking at dinosaurs being like oh they're so cool but like well sharks outlasted yeah by a lot yeah you know and they're still and they like look the same like the closest relatives with dinosaur is a chicken like we went from t-rex to a chicken uh and sharks were there first and they still kind of look the same and that's pretty wild yeah yeah it is pretty it is pretty wild i love that um so then you went to to florida state now i know did Gavin Naylor go to florida state too is that where he's at right now or is he he's at university of florida university of florida okay so you went to it so you didn't it's not as if you he moved and you followed you went to florida state for your graduate work what was that in that was in biology and i was doing work on the small food softish which is really cool um so i did not follow Gavin he was leaving all of his students kind of finished up me included and i'm like okay cool i'm gonna leave i'm gonna go down to florida and he said well you want to come do a PhD with me i was like no i'm kind of done in the lab i'm kind of over in my pipette life um hey i want to i want to get out there and do more applied work and get more into the conservation space and so he said well i know someone named dean grubs at fsu and he's doing work that really aligns with what you're looking for and he's got a lot of work with softish and if you're looking to conservation and get into policy softish is it because they're critically endangered yeah and he's on the softish recovery team and that could be a really good end for you and so he made that introduction and so then i went on to work with dean i love that and what was that experience like you know obviously going to a larger university um a bit of an iconic university in florida it's one of the big i guess well there's a lot of great universities in florida but one of the bigs that are that i talked about i'm a big college football fan so obviously florida state always stands out what was it like doing graduate work at at florida state you know it's it you know up in the panhandle area it's kind of an interesting area to work um it was overwhelming i did not like it oh really okay um so my first day of my graduate program i'm like you know all bright eye ready to go my drive i get there i think with plenty of time and i get into the parking garage and it is packed and there are people like following people around cutting people off honking at people it is like an aggressive parking garage situation and i went to a school with 10,000 people in a city where nobody drives so like we weren't fighting over parking spots at oh the trusted um and i was like whoa whoa okay so i'm circling the garage and i'm kind of timidly trying to find a parking spot um and i could not find a parking spot and i was like and now i am late for class i got here with 45 minutes and i used to and i could not find a parking spot and so then i started pat panicking um and had a panic attack and i was like i'm just gonna go home we're just gonna say this is day is wash i'm out uh so my first day at grad school i didn't even go because i couldn't get a parking spot um that's something and yeah it was just overwhelming and like it just was a lot and i went to college that didn't have a football team so like the football scene and the fact that like it's huge the population of Tallahassee doubles anytime there's a football game and i'm like the only reason i knew when football games were going on was so that i knew not to leave my house um because it was just so busy so yeah it was a lot um Tallahassee is not a very fun city uh especially considering it's the capital of Florida i'm like you would think you have more going on as the capital of Florida but not a lot going on um uh so i was like the city's kind of boring there's just football and i don't like football yeah oh no so so you spent you spent you know you obviously studying a a very iconic species a endangered species it becomes important you spent probably it's a it's a master's degree or was it a PhD master's degree right so you spend what two three years there like that's a long years if you're not liking you know the sort of the the city the the ambiance let's just say in the busyness of of the the university uh what was the entire experience like especially from the like from the academics point of view like the studying point of view so i really loved working with softish i mean they're really cool animals i feel incredibly lucky to be able to study them i mean most people go their entire lives without seeing one and i got to see a lot and i got to work with them and and tag them and and you know be part of protecting them and so that was amazing i you know kind of breezed through my grad school because i didn't particularly like living in Tallahassee uh right so you're focused kind of laughs it's like you're the fastest person ever get through a master's degree if i laugh and i was like because i was like get me out of here i want the degree and i want to get out so but yeah i mean working with the animals and and all the experience that i got i mean i got to go to the Everglades and like do research out at the Everglades and that's just like an amazing place to be and i got to study this amazing group of animals and i got to work with the softish recovery team and and learn about how policy works and the Endangered Species Act and the inner workings of that i got to work with fwc i did an internship with fwc i mean i got to get really involved in that connection between science and policy which is really what i wanted to do and i mean now i i exist in this space in this venn diagram between education science and policy to exactly where i want it to be so i'm really grateful for the opportunity um you know similar to call to Charleston it had its challenges um but you know those those happen everywhere um and i feel like you know i got what i needed out of that degree and i'm glad that i did it and i got the experience and i got to meet really cool people i mean the friends that i made um while at fsu were were really great and so that's that's something that's nice even though there was nothing to do in that city but it had a water burger i will give it that it actually had three water burgers i do love water burger so i will give talahassie that that they have three water burgers they had three so like you you could go to which whichever one you want at any point in time and you're you're happy that's good that's good did you do a lot of gaming then too yes i did um i am that that that includes um they didn't have a really big theater scene which made me really sad um theater is another thing that i really like to do so nice i had a gap where i didn't do theater for the whole time that i was in grad school um and that was sad um but i mean then i moved to seresota uh where there's theaters like you throw a rock and you hit a theater so now i'm overwhelmed with how many theaters there are where like they send out their audition notices i'm like why do you have so many cool shows at the same time i can only do one at a time um so it all worked out oh that's fun that's fun now uh you worked at at moat marine laboratory yes can you talk a little bit about that like was that right after grad school or did you spend a little bit of time before yes that was right after grad school so going back to i gotta get out of here so i told d and i was like less indeed december i'm out like i gotta go i started i started looking for houses like in october i was like i i don't know if you think i'm done but i think i'm done so i started looking for jobs just letting you know i started looking for jobs and houses and everything and and so i actually um i kind of told i was like so i'm done and he was like hey i guess you're done oh yeah yeah so uh then i had applied for this job um at moat which was science adjacent because i was kind of like you know i need to take a breather out of um academic space i just kind of burned out from the like you know it's really like go go go go go in academia and science in particular i was like i don't know this environment seems like it doesn't really mesh with me so i wasn't sure if i wanted to stay in science if i wanted to get into more policy more of the science education i wasn't really sure so i got a job at moat doing um uh coordinating for a new project that they had gotten an NSF funding for um which was to broaden participation in marine science which was right up my alley and interest and so it was actually in the education department and i was gonna like build this internship program and um i was really excited about it and um i ended up getting the job and i was like great cool because i was gonna move to Sarasota regardless i was like i'm really here my parents were like you're gonna buy a house and you don't have a job and i was like listen i want to live on the beach so i'm gonna go move to beach and the job will find me i will do something but i'm going to move to the beach and you already knew it had theater yeah you already knew it had theater like this is this is the place this is the place where i get this stuff so after living for two and a half years someplace i didn't like i was like i'm going to live somewhere that i like and i will find something to do there so i picked a place that i wanted to live and then i looked for a job um so really interesting way of doing i i like that because a lot of people will move for their jobs like they'll find a job and they'll move there and they'll make that their home you already going through a time where you're like yeah fs use great you know it gives me a lot of experience but i didn't like living in telehasty so all of a sudden you're like i learned from that i'm gonna just pick the place but in florida it's interesting there's there's there seems to be a lot of opportunities for jobs for for marine scientists whether it be in state government whether it be in federal government there are quite a number of non-profit organizations but i feel as though moat marine laboratory is a bit of like it's a huge deal to work for moat it's got a great it's it's you know it's got a great reputation uh you know it's you know eugeney clark work there you know at one point and and a lot of other people who have worked there over the years have really made it a great name as a research and education facility to be there to get a job at that mean a lot for you like were you excited to work for moat or was it more just the program that you were able to do be like this is this is my thing like this is what i want to do yeah i mean i was really excited to work um at moat that was one of the places that i was on that's how i found the job i looked to see if they were hiring um that's one of the reasons i picked Sarasota i was like look there's a whole bunch of things happening in st p there's like federal there is state there are non-profits there's multiple aquariums around i was like someone has to hire me like the like i just got to go there there's beach and there's a whole bunch of jobs somebody will hire me um so uh yeah i was looking at it and i mean i have um been a big um follower of eugeney clark's work and um you know the fact that she had founded moat was certainly really cool i know my first day whenever i um started my office was actually like right down the hall from genie's office and it's still preserved and they like kept all her bumper stickers around and everything that's awesome so my first day there i like was like wow her office is like right there like i i can step out of my office and just look and it's there and it was it was super cool um to be to be part of that legacy for sure i love that i love that and the work that you did there was it always the same probably it was building a program uh not easy to do uh were you working in a team or were you heading this program up and and building it as you saw fit along with with moat um yeah so i was the only person um at first that was hired um for that position and so it was largely me just building it which was also super cool that i got to build something yeah um and pretty much got full rain from um my supervisor and from um dr. Crosby the CEO of moat he was just kind of like because he was the PI on the grant who's kind of like okay and and allie my supervisor was also like i don't know do whatever you want um so i actually like they had written this whole grant proposal and i was like that's cute and and and i was like so here's what i'm actually gonna do and i mean they were all like okay great uh so it ended up being this whole thing way different from what they had proposed um because i mean they they had written this grant with you know their perspective and um it was an all white team that had written the grant and i came in and i was like well i actually just went through this this process of becoming a scientist and like going through internships and going through the career and everything as a person of color so i i think that's great everything that you said that's not actually what people of color need to be successful here's what we're gonna do instead and they were like valid great awesome that's why you were high because we had an idea of what people might need right but we that we don't live in that reality so you know um so that was one of the reasons why i got hired because i had just gone through everything um and so i know exactly what is needed so that's that's what i built yeah and and i feel like like obviously that's the the way to go um and it was nice it was nice that your supervisors were like yes this is let's let's go your way because you have the experience and you'll be able to tell um can you talk about some of the differences that that you like from what they wrote to what you implemented that that really worked well for that from what you implemented sure so i mean one of the big things and it ended up being a core component of the marsy lace program is i built a mentorship program um that wasn't in that wasn't in there initially and and so i one of my big things as someone that has gone through this is mentorship is huge and bringing people into a space where they don't have support isn't actually helpful and what i learned from all of the process of going through schooling is that people never get training to mentor people like professors are just like ah you got a degree and you do science so you must obviously know how to teach people and you obviously know how to mentor a grad student and an undergraduate student and i'm like incorrect that is not something that you just know how to do um and so it was just like a lot of people that i mean wait maybe well meaning but they all they do is replicate what how they learn and what they do and so what that leads to is they only feel comfortable mentoring people that are exactly like that and and so that's where a lot of bias comes in actually is that you know it's scary to mentor somebody that is so different from you like if you come from a white upper middle-class background and you are sudden and you're a man and you are suddenly faced with someone from a low-income home that is a person of color and a woman and an immigrant and like english is their second language you're like oh god i don't know how to mentor that person and so you go to mentor somebody that you know how to mentor and what does that mean if we if we all look like this in science yeah and we all mentor people that we're comfortable mentoring because no one ever taught us to mentor us we mentor people exactly like us that means that all these other people get left behind and so that's that's what i wanted to create is is that if we make people feel comfortable mentoring to the point where they can mentor anyone regardless of their background or similarity to themselves then we can actually get people feeling supported and we don't just get the shallow programs where we like bring all these people of color in and they're like oh it sucks here i want to leave so yeah yeah that's interesting way to you know to think about it because especially when you talk about the different personalities of professors you know there are some very interesting and unique professors out there who some are very good at mentoring naturally and others are not so much in a very bad way and and so you get this whole spectrum and and to say yeah we need training or professors need training to make sure that they can mentor their students properly because that's what you're paying for as a graduate student is that mentorship is to learn about the not only about the stuff that you're that you're going to study but also about sort of the the industry you know the what's the what are the jobs like what are what's it like to like live with these types of salaries and where you're going to live and all that kind of stuff it's always great to to have somebody who understands that and knows who you are and what does what's best for you and not what's best for them in the way that they would live it live out so i think that's that's that's really cool so how long were you at moat you were there for quite some time right yeah so it's interesting because i so i went and started working at moat in january of 2020 and so it's it's a very fun story about how i like moved and uh closed on my house at the end of january started my job at the beginning of january defended my master's thesis the beginning of february and then like three weeks later the entire world shut down so that was fun yes i was actually the last person to defend in person um at fsu oh i barely squeaked it um and and you finished early imagine if you didn't finish early like how that would have changed sort of the perspective of your master's so that's crazy yeah so then um i worked at moat full-time uh and we founded miss june of 2020 so i had only been in the nonprofit space for six months um before someone decided that it was a good idea for me to run a nonprofit uh which is funny um and then uh 2021 i started being like wait a minute i have two full time jobs this is really hard um so i went to my supervisor and i was like hey can i shift to part time uh so i had more time to work on miss stuff and she said for sure um and then in 2023 i actually shifted all the way over um to doing miss full-time but my supervisor said i mean marissa lace is your baby um you build this uh so we hired another um project coordinator but i still stayed on um and i just like occasionally work and kind of monitor the material advisor role advisor yeah um so i am still technically affiliated with moat um but i gave up my office and everything um in 2023 when i came to work for miss full-time but i still have um technically i'm still employed at moat it just barely work yeah well let's go back to the beginning of miss because when miss happened uh it was a it was a fairly like the months going up to it you know obviously the pandemic had hit but there was a very chaotic time uh in sort of the mainstream media there was there were three cases uh where you know um uh sort of black people were were targeted uh two of them two of them passed away because of of targeting uh obviously one george floyd was was um was was sort of like probably the biggest case in in a way but it was it was sort of like the third of you know three very popular cases that people like it really took the world by storm or at least north america by storm because even in canada like we were watching this happen um there were two other cases one a gentleman was uh killed while just jogging and uh another one where uh a birder was in central park just enjoying his his time you know just sorry there was four cases briana taylor sorry my apologies there was briana taylor at that time as well um and in sheep and unfortunately she she died she was she was killed and but this this birder was just out enjoying you know a time in central park uh a woman we can deem her karen came by and was like why are you in this park you're intimidating me calls the cops on him saying this this this guy is intimidating he's threatening me making up lies obviously he's recording thank god he was recording um you know the world kind of backed him up and i think she ended up losing her job you know after that thank god and and just you know it it from that though created that particular story created um this this bigger story which you know it started off with um i think it was was it a hashtag like black birders it was that was that the hashtag that kind of really started you started to see other uh black birders as well as ornithologists that that were black that came out on on twitter on instagram and started to say hey i like birding like i'm a birder i'm a black birder as well and they're like there's more of me in this kind of situation and then it kind of turned to sort of the marine sciences and people started to stand up and be like i'm a black person and marine scientists like in marine science and and started it kind of created this movement that i felt kind of it created it kind of inspired miss or it created miss can you talk about that time a little bit i summarize it very briefly obviously there's a lot more to each and every one of those stories that you know need to be told over and over again but can you kind of just give us a little bit more detail on how miss came out out of that sort of i guess it was like a bit of a chaos but it became like an inspiring story for for miss yeah so i mean black birders week was organized by a group of birders um who it was a response to the christian cooper situation in central park um and it was a moment for black folks to really just say hey we should be able to go out in nature and not be harassed or be worried about being shot or i mean even going back to i mean there are tons of cases but some of the more popular ones like trevon martin like walking in a neighborhood outside and because he's black and wearing a hoodie getting shot and and so this idea that like we should be able to exist just like anyone else in nature and um you know people especially during the pandemic we're trying to enjoy nature because you know you couldn't be in close proximity to people and outside spaces where everyone was trying to connect and so yeah we just really wanted everyone to know like hey we exist in in spaces and places and so the hashtag black in nature was part of this black birders week movement that was happening on social media and carly had tweeted as well as myself um pictures of us doing work in nature and because i'm a marine biologist most of the time when i'm in nature i'm on boats doing marine biology things yeah um and same thing with carly she posted um a picture and i was following the black in nature hashtag um because i mean that was a time that was really hard for everyone but particularly for black folks in america because it was just a very it's very frustrating to be like you know going outside is dangerous staying inside is dangerous because of covid um and then also having to deal with this you know big society reckoning with like black violence against black people um and like it's it was a mixed bag of feelings because it's like cool and black people are finally recognizing this but also like how many people had to die for us to get to this point like we had to be experiencing this great pause where people couldn't be doing anything else and everyone was paying attention for people to finally be heard um and so that was really frustrating because you're like you know sitting here at all of your like friends and neighbors and colleagues or putting up the black lives matter flag and you're like i have been saying this to you for years and now you finally hear me and um so uh you know i'm going through and it just had in this moment with all of these other black people on twitter and like trying to connect in this time of isolation and i see carly's tweet with the shark and i was like whoa it was like the whole world stopped because i had never met someone that looks like me that studied sharks the first time i met a black person who did marine science i was 21 years old and i was in the american-alasma rank society and i was the only black member of the american-alasma rank society which is was at the time the largest society for people that um studied sharks and rare relatives and so i was like literally felt like i was the only person in the whole world and so to see this person and have this moment of i am not alone and so i immediately responded to the tweet and was just like wait a minute are you a shark scientist this was very exciting and then what was more exciting is i mean she said yes and then jayda came in and said me too yeah and i was like there are three and then a body came in and she said me too and i was like there are four and so it was just wild it was just a wild moment and it's just like i tell people all the time it's like being in a desert and not knowing how thirsty you are until you have the first sip of water and so like we had this collective experience of each of us feeling like we were the only people and having this moment where we realized that we're not and it was such a good feeling that we wanted to create that feeling for other people and so we were just kind of like it started out as a joker at first like we should start a club and here we are four years later 500 members later 33 different countries represented and it's a giant non-profit so it's pretty wild yeah oh i mean and it happened so quick it felt like it happened so quickly i think uh i interviewed carly the end of august she was finishing up her masters at the time and miss had pretty much been i feel like it was been registered as a non-profit maybe not charity at that point because i know that takes a little bit longer but it was pretty much on its way you know you guys had been talking about it online and it had a great movement online and then all of a sudden i think it was was it that december of 2020 was your first workshop that you that you did on with with the school of fields it was a field science field school yeah so that was in march um yeah so it was it's pretty funny because we i mean we all met each other on twitter so we had never met each other in person so we started this whole non-profit and then the first time we all met each other in person was in march at the workshop nine months later so it was like we literally like had a whole gestation period like we birthed a non-profit and then met each other for the first time i love that can you just kind of like we talked about the formation of miss but what when you first discussed it what did you want miss to represent what did you want to do with miss i know you already had you know you already have experienced building a mentorship program you know through mode and you were building that as you know as you were starting this this organization at the same time which is insane by the way that's so much work um but like what were you what what was like the collective of the four of you the co-founders thinking what you wanted to accomplish with miss well we wanted people to feel like they belonged and we also wanted people to feel heard and because when we started talking one of the big things was for the first time we all could sit down and talk about the stuff that we were facing and you know the things that were said in the comments and the looks and the all of these little things that if we bring up in any other space people are like well i'm sure they didn't mean that well i think you're overreacting um and so so we wanted to create a space where people could feel heard and we know from talking to each other that we're they were happening to all of us so it's not just us and people this whole time had made it made us feel like it was us like we were the ones being overly sensitive and we were the ones taking things out of context but here were three other people saying the same thing so i'm like i don't know if it's just me now and so i was like well if we come together and create this community and we help everyone realize that it's not just them then maybe we can start addressing these things because it's really easy to ignore one person and to say oh they're making it up or they're overreacting it's really hard to ignore 500 people saying the same thing but like hey we need to address this yeah yeah for sure and and so what type of programs do you create when you start talking about when these these types of issues that you face in the past and that many of you have faced in the past uh within like the collective members of miss what type of programs do you do you run to not only address them but you know try to not only find solutions but implement the solutions because i know you probably already know the solutions of years and years of going through this and being like no we should be doing this but like how do you go ahead and try and implement those solutions in different avenues like what so what type of programs do you come up with like with an organization like miss so one of the big things is access a lot of people just don't have access to information to resources and so one of our first things was how do we get people access and so from the get go field school had offered the use of their vessel and so we said great there are tons of people out there that will never get field experience because everything is paid to play basically in marine science it's like you gotta pay for it you oh you want to come intern for us you pay us three thousand dollars in what world i wish you would go into corporate america and be like oh you want to come intern for coca cola you need to pay coca cola three thousand dollars it doesn't make any sense um so especially how after getting a professional degree like getting your you've got a degree now we're going to use you but you're going to pay us and you're going to give us all our all the data yeah yeah so so we said okay so that was our first fundraiser is we want to get everyone here we want to give them access to mentorship we want to give them professional development we want to give them field experience we want to bring people here so we can give people these things that they don't have access to um and then i mean even for kids it started even younger of like i got all the way to 10th grade before someone told me that marine science was the thing that existed and so how do we help kids know about these things and when you look at schools and you look at the schools that have marine science classes they are schools in historically white neighborhoods they are schools in upper class neighborhoods title one schools typically don't have marine science classes they don't have special science classes it is like you get basic worksheets like you don't have a microscope you don't have whatever we're just getting you to take the standardized test and it's not fair that this school has all of this equipment and this school does not and so how do we get how do we get science real science into the hands of kids not just we're going to read about this and answer a worksheet that's not doing science doing science is asking questions and figuring out the answer doing sciences following your curiosity and that's how you get people excited about things no one wants to set and answer worksheets that's literally like the worst way to learn science so how do we get that to kids so we have programs when we go into schools we bring we pay to bring schools out to the um local watersheds and you know do things with them um another thing is conferences conferences are minefields for marginalized communities they could be really good for networking they can also be yeah really bad they can be really hurtful people can attack you in the q&a sessions there's been like issues of sexual harassment at conferences all sorts of things so how do we make conferences safe for us it's we travel together we pay for people to get there again eliminating that financial barrier we pair them up with someone that's been to that conference before we make sure they always have someone to eat lunch with we have a signal that everyone in the group knows of this means I need help come get me out of this conversation or get me out of this situation how do we make sure that all that is is happening and then also like beyond even our members everyone that we work with every organization that we touch it's we're holding you to a high standard you want to come and partner with miss you want a miss to come to your conference you want miss to do these things we're holding you accountable your people need to go through our mentor training your folks need to understand allyship these are the expectations if you don't do that partnership over we're holding you accountable because the issue has been that people haven't been held accountable the people powerful people have been allowed to do whatever they want because no one wants to rock the boat but miss is here to rock the boat that is that is what we're here right right got you but it like with with a solution that's more positive for everybody right I think that's the thing I think people see it as a rock the boat and just provide chaos but no you know to get better you have to take down some things that weren't working before for everybody and maybe just for a small small percentage of people and I like that idea I think it it becomes a little chaotic at first you know for people who don't want to change or don't feel the need that needs to change but then eventually it kind of has to to you know to change and it eventually it does people the right people get in the right place and I think in your book you mentioned you know one one conference with with AES the American Lazzo Branks Society and you mentioned a really interesting you talk about the first time you went to the to that conference and then you talk about I think it was like six years later was it the was it the one in in Washington in Washington is it Spokane I think it was where you talked about having missed as a group there and how you had the partnership can you just talk a little bit about that that conference just to like show sort of how people felt as they went you know at that time compared to the way you felt when you first when you first went sure yeah so 2017 was my first conference um with AES and that was a weird experience I definitely felt like I was in the Twilight Zone um it was uh I mean admittedly I talked to people and they were like oh yeah that was the worst conference for you to come to because they were arguing about the code of conduct and whether there should be a code of conduct which um right seems really silly and right um not something that we should be having a discussion about that seems like a given that you should have rules about how you treat other people um and the fact that that was up for debate was very concerning to me I was like all right so everyone debating against this on one hand I'm glad that you've made yourself known because I am not getting anywhere near you because you've been told don't sexually harass people or be racist and you were like I don't want anyone to tell me what to do and I'm like that means that you want to do those things and I don't want to be near you right um and and so I was just very disappointed at like how how much discussion there was about that um right and then uh you know another person of color that was also there um they had had a comment made to them about how they were only there because of some DEI whatever um and it's like okay I don't know why you would say that to another person right awful thing to say and unnecessary what um and so makes no sense what people say to people yeah so I I was like all right this seems not great and that was my first conference ever um so I was like this is not okay and I remember like other women pulling me aside and saying like hey watch out for this person watch out for that person so that yeah and I was like yeah I mean thanks for the heads up but why are they still here if multiple people are gonna tell me like don't go near that guy that guy should not be allowed here like if we all know that this person does those things why is he still here I don't get it um and so that was that was weird it was a weird thing um and so then the conference uh what was it two years ago um in Norfolk we took um some mess members and um it was pretty incredible because we got a whole group of mess members including some members who had gone to AES before and had not gone back because of how their experiences had been and they because of the fact that miss was going as a group said I will give it another try because I trust my fellow mess members to protect me and for us to protect each other um and everyone you know for the most part had a good experience and a lot of them it was their first time at an AES meeting and that they didn't even bat an eye like it didn't it it was a normal you know experience and I'm like great I'm glad that that was your first experience and then for exactly everyone that had experienced it before they were like wow it was so different yeah having missed there and even other people like not miss people were like it was like people were on their best behavior because miss was there they were like oh no miss is gonna like mama bear jazz is gonna like come out if I do it if I step out of line here uh so yeah I mean it made a big difference and I'm so glad that the majority of the people it was their first conference and it was a good one and way different from my first experience and I think that goes to show that it's possible to change and just because your conference has a history of being a super toxic place doesn't mean that always has to be the case you can change yeah always strive to change always strive to be better right even if you think everything is copistatic it's you need to change you need to strive to be better I I I've attended a different conference the international marine conservation congress for a number of years and it got a bad reputation and I think it was in 2016 in Newfoundland Canada they they enacted a code of conduct and I believe it was in 2018 when we were in Kuching Malaysia they added a safety officer I'm not sure if we had one in 2016 I don't really remember but I know in 2018 we had the code of conduct and a safety officer and my understanding with AES uh we we do have a there is a code of conduct and a safety officer at the conferences now is that correct okay so we did get that even though there was argument we did they did put that in and there is a safety officer which which is and can you just give a description of the role of the safety officer at this conference yeah so um the safety officer is someone that um you can report issues to the there's multiple societies that meet together at the conference which is the joint meeting of the the joint meeting of ichthyologists and herpetologists which is such a hard thing to say yeah um such a long and um yeah so each society has um safety officers um and their role is sort of monetary monitor things and you can report things to them directly they also have a independent third party ombud's person that if you report and um send a report online it goes to somebody that is not part of any of the societies and it's an independent third party that reviews um so they added that recently um after people kind of were like yeah but the science world is really small and uh there's a chance that you could be reporting something to someone and they are friends or know or have some sort of connection yeah person you're reporting against so they um absolutely initiated that independent third party that reviews um things so you can report online as well if you don't want to go through the safety officer yeah so continue like it's continuing to get better and better as as people give their feedback but i think you know to give feedback you have to be in a safe safe place you have to feel safe to to be able to provide that feedback to get better and i think that's uh that becomes that becomes important you know and i and the fact that you know reading in the book the the fact that miss can show up to a conference and people show up just because they're because they know that they have someone they know that they have people uh you know their people their group to be like hey we're going to look out for you we're going to make sure that this conference you're going to enjoy yourself and also learn some things as this conference is supposed to be it's supposed to be about networking it's supposed to be about you know creating collaborations but doing it in a safe spot um and it's unfortunate that we have to get to that point where it wasn't a safe spot just with you know just sort of like just hoping that people would just be nice to each other but obviously you know you need a code of conduct you need a safety officer you need that level above the safety officer to ensure that things you know are are fair and even for everybody and that you know it it requires safety you know when we're in a world like we are today it definitely requires safety so i'm glad that that is a that's a part of your a part of your program um now you guys have grown considerably you know in as you mentioned over 500 members and uh you know going to different conferences coming up with different programs that's a lot to do uh you know and so there's there's four founders are they all working for uh for for miss you know full time because i know like i know jade and i'm not sure if this has changed i know she's in she's doing her she's doing her PhD up in in boston i believe um and so i'm not sure is everybody working on like the four founders working or do you have staff like how's that how's that working because that's sounds like a lot of work for for for you you know to to manage all of these on your own yeah so um yeah amani and jade are both in phd programs um right so they are focusing on their phd programs um so they're not staff they uh are on the board and give their you know opinions and things about upper level governance um and amani is our cfo so she is the main one that you know reviews the finances and is like yep that's that's an approved budget that looks good right um and then uh carly is uh the director of communications um and we actually hired a communications coordinator so the communications coordinator um is a part-time position and she is the person who does all of our social media and all of our um press releases and sending things to donors and supporters and the newsletters and all of that and then um carly makes sure that our brand uh voice and messaging is is consistent across all of our platforms and um speaks on behalf of miss um when any reporters or anything want to interview anyone or something like that um and then uh I kind of manage the programming side of things and the research side of things and keeping things moving in terms of fundraising um and then we have a another full-time staff I'm full-time and then there's another full-time staff member um who is our program coordinator and she is like the boots on the ground actually running the program so I kind of like set everything up and she makes sure that they run um and uh and she's great and fabulous and works super hard uh everyone on the miss team works super hard and then uh we have an executive assistant uh who makes sure that I don't drop a ball so she is getting everything together in terms of like these people are need to be called and this person hasn't paid their invoice like this person so I just kind of like do ideas and things and then she makes sure that things actually happen uh in order for all of those things to to be achieved so um yeah we have a four-person team in terms of staff and then um Carly is is a support for NACE our um communications coordinator um I support Nora our program coordinator and then Amani is kind of in the back end making sure all of our finances are together um and Jada makes videos for TikTok because she's great at that. Unreal. Unreal. Right. Amazing. I look at I look at her TikTok I've been on TikTok never to like that degree of what she like the creative mind that she has and be able to um to be able to speak the way she does you know about about everything marine biology wise it's a phenomenal that's that's sort of how I found out about her and then I realized she was part of of the whole miss and the co-founders and I just I love it I just think it's uh it's amazing you know if you have four four staff members you know so it's small staff doing them like huge things for uh the marine conservation field and the marine science field um and that is I think that's just going to continue and and just be amazing as as we go along um now I know we talked about bits and pieces of the book you know throughout throughout this interview I I wasn't sure if I was gonna ask this before I kind of want to ask this now I feel like it's really pertinent why did you write the book like why why what was the the like did you ever think about writing a book before and then why would you write this book here I never thought about writing a book before um my literary agent Chad emailed me um and was like hello I'm a literary agent have you ever thought about writing a book and I just responded and he was like would you consider writing a book will you talk to me about writing a book and I was like yeah I don't think I have anything to say a book requires a lot of words I don't think I have that much to say and then he was like well well can we just hop on a call I just want to talk to you I have some thoughts I think it would be really good and so then I started talking to him and I was like Chad I'm 30 years old I don't have that much I haven't lived that long you know I want to say um and he was like well I mean everyone writes books about their careers at the end of their careers and no one writes them at the beginning in the middle um and I was like that's true and he was like just because it hasn't been done doesn't mean you can't do it right like this hadn't been done before you did that I was like dang it Chad you got me there um so then I was like you know just kind of think about it and ponder and just sit down and just jot down a page of thoughts of what you might put in a book if you were to write something what would you write and so then I did that and I was like he's right I do have things to say and then I started thinking about it and I was like yeah and then I started getting angry because I was like why did I assume that I didn't have the right to write a book and then I started thinking about it and I was like because I didn't see anyone write a book that was like me everyone writes books when they've achieved some great thing and they're at the end of their life and they're reflecting on it and you always read these books and it's all these triumphant tales with like a nice pretty little bow on the end and everything works out and it's pretty and it's smooth and I was like where are all the books about the in between where everything is rough and ugly and yeah and not smooth and bumpy and there isn't an ending and you have more questions than you have answers and you don't know where anything is going where are those books why is going writing those books and then I was like dang it Chad you were right and I should write this book I emailed him and I was like fine I'll write a book so that's that's how we got here well and I'll have to admit I haven't read the full book and I will I I prove I basically the way I do when I get sent a book like this I go through it and I have to admit as I was preparing for this interview I started reading like pieces of it and next thing you know I'm like 30 pages into that section I'm like hold on a second I've got to see the rest of the story before I'm going to read this whole book it's I love the way you write I love it's it's kind of it's just like this story is it's it's addictive you know into finding out you know some of the things that you've you've gone through and like and you know feeling the the pain of like the loneliness and the isolation when you first went to to the conference and then you know it just so happened that I flipped to the next section and it was the you know six years later and going to a conference where you provide support for other people and then people went to that conference for that that specific area even talking about other sections where you talk about your grandma you talk about your dad and how they've you know they kind of got you into loing more about the ocean and fishing and and I just I just love sort of the way you write I think it's it's really it's it's it's a wonderful read and I'm looking forward to diving deeper into this book and and to get to know um a lot of sort of the the stories that that and sort of the the things that you encounter I feel you know I'm I am a middle-aged white male so I've had a specific you know way of going through the marine industry it hasn't been easy it it it you know definitely there's ups and downs but I definitely haven't gone through a lot of what other people have gone through and to to read this book to understand sort of the the the life of you've had the ups and downs that you've had it's it's good to know for me as as a marine biologist and and to see how I can I like I'm learning how I can help you know through this book and help other people and help support other people that that don't have the affordability to have the the sort of like the easiness that I had and the privileges that I have going through this industry so you know I want to thank you so much for for writing this book I think it's going to help a lot of people just as you said you know nobody that looked like you wrote a book like this before and now somebody has and and and you are going to I'm hoping and I can I can imagine inspire a lot of people to do some great things and to get into marine biology and god knows we need more people in marine biology of all different cultures and different backgrounds and from different places and I'm so happy that that you're part of this and that you're there to to mentor them through and help them through with with your organization so thank you so much for writing the book thank you so much for you know helping to found miss and everything you've done and and I really do appreciate you coming on here and and just laying it all out here on the podcast I know it's not easy to talk about some of these things so I really do appreciate your time and and and your transparency through all of this it's great thank you thanks for having me you bet thank you thank you jasmine for joining us here on the how to protect the ocean podcast what uh what a story you know a great story that uh that I really appreciate you know jasmine coming on the podcast being so transparent if you look in her book there's a lot of really interesting parts in the book talking about things that have happened at conferences talking about specific events where the group and miss and and sort of that entire sort of base and and people who are part of the members who are part of that miss help each other out throughout conferences and I think it's just such a great book to read I'm going to put the link in the show notes so that you can get access to this book you can pre-order it and if you're listening to this a little later on and it's available I highly recommend you order if you want to be in shark science or if you want to be in marine science and conservation this is the book for you to read it's called sharks don't sink adventures of a rogue shark scientist by jasmine gram this is uh it was a pleasure to be able to finally meet jasmine i've heard a lot of great things about her and the work that she's done over at minorities in shark science or miss as it's also known and the people there that are just working there to help expose uh minorities in shark science and minorities that want to be in science to the beautiful and wonders of field work and you know mentorship and be able to be like hey this is what marine science is all about this is what to look out for this is how you navigate it so you can have a better experience than any of us have ever had and I think that's just something that we need to see more often uh and i'm really glad that um the people at minorities in shark science are doing a great job doing that so um that's the interview for today if you want more information on jasmine i'm going to put her links in the show notes you want to find out more news about marine science and conservation you can go and sign up for our newsletter and speak up for blue.com/newsletter if you have any questions or comments to me hit me up on instagram @how to protect the ocean and don't finally don't forget to sign up for our ocean app that's coming out in july that's speakupforblue.com/oceanapp that's speakupforblue.com/oceanapp i want to thank you for joining us on today's episode of the how to protect the ocean podcast i am your host Andrew Lew and have a great day we'll talk to you next time and happy conservation
