All the while, Eugenie Clark was building her career as a female scientist, in part because she stepped outside of her comfort zone. In 1955, Clark was working at the newly Vanderbilt funded Cape Haze Marine Laboratory, when she received a call from Dr. John Heller, director of the New England Institute for Marine Research, asking if the lab could obtain a shark for him. Clark initially thought of telling Heller her lab lacked the knowledge to catch sharks, but then turned to her assistant, Beryl Chadwick, who informed her he possessed the expertise. Unbeknownst to Clark, Chadwick had worked with Stewart Springer, who would later be recognized as an authority on sharks.
(Photograph from Eugenie Clark's Current research at the Cape Haze Marine Laboratory, and reports for 1955-1961, available via Mote's DSpace at
https://dspace.mote.org/dspace/handle/2075/3119)