WINGS FELLOW Genie Clark was honored with Legends of the Sea award from Beneath the Sea

Courtesy Nina Leen/Mote Marine Laborator

Wings Fellow Genie Clark was honored with Legends of the Sea award from Beneath the Sea.

See an interview with her from SportDiver magazine http://www.sportdiver.com/article/news/shark-lady-dr-eugenie-clark-reflects-lifetime-fish-study

Clark is best known for founding Mote Marine Laboratory, originally called Cape Haze Marine Laboratory, in 1955 in Southwest Florida. Today the Lab has nearly 200 staff, multiple facilities in Florida and scientists who work on six of the seven continents.

Clark is a world authority on sharks and author of more than 175 scientific articles and popular books on sharks and other fishes.

Her diving expeditions are legendary. She has searched for sharks in submersibles, diving to depths as deep as 12,000 feet, and has led diving expeditions to the Caribbean, Mexico, Bermuda, Japan, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea to study the behavior of sharks and fishes of the sands and coral reefs, such as garden eels — a focus of her continuing research.

Her work in the Red Sea was instrumental in the creation of the first underwater National Park of Egypt, Ras Mohammad. The story of her Red Sea exploration, told in her book “Lady with a Spear,” inspired the philanthropic support that led to the creation of Mote Marine Laboratory — a story told in her later book, “The Lady and the Sharks.”  - Beneath The Sea