Science is for everyone...

... but it hasn't always been. MISS was founded because the 4 co-founders regularly felt alone and unwelcome in marine and shark science. As Black and mixed race women, they were often one of a few people of color in their higher-ed STEM classes. With that in mind, they founded MISS with the hopes of making it so no one who came after them has to feel as they did.

Our Mission & Vision

We hope to advance the field of shark, ray and other marine sciences by challenging the status quo of underrepresentation of gender minorities from historically-excluded communities of color and the Global South and providing accessible and equitable pathways to research, conservation, and education.

We hope to see representation of gender minorities from historically-excluded communities of color and the Global South in shark, ray and other marine sciences is the norm rather than the exception.

Communities We Serve

At MISS, we aim to help any gender minority of color, K thru Grey, pursue their dream of being a marine biologist or shark scientist. We define a gender minority of color as a person who: (1) identifies as woman, trans, non-binary, two spirit and/or gender fluid and (2) as Black, Indigenous and/or of color, and/or comes from a community in the global south. 

​For K-12 we offer a variety of camps and online content to get children (of all genders) interested in and exposed to marine science at a young age. For 18+ individuals we offer fully funded fellowships, scientific workshops, conference travel awards, mentorship, and more.

Our Impact

Each year, we hope to significantly increased our programming and reach. In order to quantify this, we do annual reports to see where we fell short and where we excelled to inform our programming for the coming year. We encourage you to look through our two previous reports below!
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2023 Impact Report
2022 Impact Report