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2025 was a great year for my public outreach! Among other things, I was selected as a Sigma Xi distinguished lecturer (starting in 2026,) won the American Fisheries Society’s Excellence in Public Outreach Award, and was honored as one of the people most shaping policy in Washington, DC by Washingtonian Magazine. Here are some of … Read More “2025: My year in writing, public speaking, and media interviews” »

Tons of Shark Week shows are full of obvious pseudoscientific nonsense, and yet feature real scientists. Why would these people agree to do that? In my capacity as “Shark Week’s Biggeset Critic,” I’m asked this question a lot, and while I can’t speak for others and their decision-making processes, based on what colleagues have told … Read More “Why would a serious scientist agree to participate in a nonsense Shark Week show?” »

Jaws turned 50 this week, and I spoke with a lot of journalists about it. I wrote about what’s happened to sharks in the 50 years since Jaws came out- some of the worst years in these animals 450 million year history- for the Revelator. Jaws at 50: Was the Terrifying Movie Really to Blame … Read More “A roundup of my media outreach for Jaws’ 50th anniversary” »

Social media is, despite it’s challenges and limitations, an incredibly powerful (and widely used) professional tool for scientists. One common use of social media is to share one’s research with colleagues, or to find papers shared by others to read. And yet, despite the idea that sharing links to research online is not exactly new, … Read More “It’s 2025. Why do so many scientific journal articles still display weird when shared on social media?” »

Nature recently shared a list of the most-cited papers of all time in any scientific field. That got me thinking: what are the most-cited papers in my field? And do they have any traits in common? Me at the New England Aquarium Methods: Simple! I performed a Web of Science database search for “shark,” and … Read More “These are the 10 most-cited shark science papers of all time” »

OpenCTD and Oceanography for Everyone Ten years ago, Kersey, Russell, and I set of on a quixotic quest to make the tools of ocean science more accessible to more knowledge seekers at a price the reflects the reality of research budgets. The OpenCTD, a low-cost, open-source, oceanographic instrument was born. Since that first ambitious announcement, … Read More “The research rundown: an abbreviated list of my current ocean science, policy, education, and conservation technology efforts.” »