Eugenie Clark (May 4, 1922 – February 25, 2015), popularly known as The Shark Lady, was an American ichthyologist known for both her research on shark behavior and her study of fish in the order Tetraodontiformes. Clark was a pioneer in the field of scuba diving for research purposes. In addition to being regarded as an authority in marine biology, Clark was popularly recognized and used her fame to promote marine conservation. Early life and education Eugenie Clark was born and raised in New York City. Her father, Charles Clark, died when Eugenie was almost two years old, and her mother, Yumico Motomi, later married Japanese restaurant owner Masatomo Nobu. Clark attended elementary school in Woodside, Queens, and graduated from Bryant High School in Queens, New York. She was the only student of Japanese descent in her schools. From an early age, Clark was passionate about marine science, with many of her school reports covering topics in marine biology. An initial visit to the New York Aquarium at Battery Park inspired Clark to return to the aquarium every Saturday thereafter, fascinated by marine animals. The work of naturalist William Beebe further inspired Clark to become an oceanographer. Academic and scientific life Eugenie Clark received a Bachelor of Arts in zoology from Hunter College (1942). During summers, she studied at the University of Michigan Biological Station, and prior to graduate school, she worked for Celanese Corporation as a chemist. Eugenie initially sought to attend graduate school at Columbia University, but her application was rejected out of fear that she would eventually choose to leave her scientific career in order to focus on raising children. Undaunted, Clark went on to earn both a Master of Arts (1946) and Doctorate of Zoology (1950) from New York University. During her years of graduate study, Clark carried out research at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, the American Museum of Natural History in New York, the Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory in Massachusetts, and at the Lerner Marine Laboratory in Bimini. In 1949, under an Office of Naval Research program to undertake scientific research in Micronesia, Clark carried out fish population studies in Guam, the Marshall Islands, the Palau islands, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the Caroline Islands. After completing doctoral research, Clark received a Fulbright Scholarship to pursue ichthyological studies at the Marine Biological Station in Hurghada, on the northern Red Sea