Swimming with Sharks

In the middle of the South Pacific, Aarthi Kannan ’22 MESc is doing a deep dive into predator ecology to inform wildlife conservation initiatives worldwide. As a Fulbright scholar, she is spending eight months in French Polynesia researching the impacts of shark-diving tourism practices on shark behavior, and their ecosystem-wide effects. 

“Shark-diving is a million-dollar global industry,” she says. “This exhaustive assessment of shark-diving on the behavior and conservation of reef sharks and other endangered species will contribute to the world’s first shark-safe diving guidelines.”