You're listening to shortwave from NPR.

Melissa Christina Marquez has been obsessed with sharks since the very first time she saw

one as a little kid on TV during you guessed it.

She was watching a show called and this is real air jaws.

Which essentially is just showing the power of great white sharks breaching or flinging

themselves out of the water up into the air to kind of catch their prey.

And, you know, I think for any person, but especially a child who's never seen a shark

like that before, it's really awe inspiring.

You kind of just sit there with your jaw on the ground being like, wait, what?

It kind of cemented for me as a kid being like, yeah, this is what I want to study.

This is what I want to dedicate my life to.

And she does.

Melissa is a shark scientist, a PhD candidate living in Western Australia.

And what Melissa wants us to know is that sharks are not only these fierce and amazing creatures,

like how she first saw them on TV as a kid, they also play this incredibly important ecological

role too.

The saying is, a healthy ocean needs healthy sharks and that is very, very true.

So today in the show, we dive into the importance of sharks with shark scientist Melissa Christina

Marquez, including their role in mitigating climate change.

And you know, there may or may not also be some talk about shark poop.

I'm Maddie Sophia and you're listening to Shark Wave from NPR.

All right, Melissa.

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