My name is Lei Curtis, and I’m excited to share my experience as a 2025 NOAA Hollings scholar interning with the National Systematics Laboratory. I’m a senior at Northeastern University studying ecology and evolutionary biology. My main research interest is the diversity of marine organisms that have cartilage skeletons, including sharks, rays, and skates. I aspire to continue studying the evolution of these organisms throughout my career. This summer, I got to sharpen my research skills by working with specimens of a group called chimaeras, or ghost sharks.
Why Study Ghost Sharks?
Contrary to their name, ghost sharks are not true sharks—they are actually a group of deep sea animals also known as chimaeras. I was immediately captivated by ghost sharks when I discovered them during my sophomore year of college and made it my mission to learn as much as possible. These animals are poorly understood and understudied because most species are only found in specific locations and deeper environments. As a result, it is difficult to fully understand them without access to physical specimens. My summer 2025 internship supported by the Ernest F. Hollings Scholarship provided the perfect opportunity to study them firsthand.
With the support of my mentor, Dr. Katherine Bemis, I developed an internship project to work with ghost shark specimens preserved at the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History. This was my first experience working in a wet laboratory, or a lab where personnel work with “wet” materials such as chemicals or biological matter. It was also my first research experience in systematics and my first time working with specimens in a natural history collection. My responsibilities included curating and cataloging specimens as I identified the species they belonged to, as well as taking photographs to document their differences. I became an expert in these animals, taking my first deep dive into the world of ghost shark systematics.
Working with the Collection
A typical day in the lab involved selecting specimens from the collection and assessing traits to identify the species. These included examining the shape of the head and patterns of sensory canals. I kept meticulous notes to track the most useful traits for identification since this varied from species to species. For example, the variation in sensory canal patterns was too great in the species Hydrolagus barbouri to be used for identification, but was consistent enough in other species, such as Hydrolagus alberti, that it could be used as an identifier.
I looked at specimens as small as 8 inches long and as large as 4 feet long, each with its own set of challenges. Over the 10-week internship, I identified more than 50 ghost shark specimens across 16 species. As a result of my research, we identified 8 species that were not previously represented within the collection. With these newly identified specimens, we now have roughly half of all ghost shark species represented in the collection. This is incredibly important, as each new specimen provides additional information about the geographic location and biology of a species—data that is not readily available for many ghost sharks!
Broader Impacts
I hope that the skills and knowledge I gained during this internship will serve as a strong foundation as I pursue a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology. There is so much that scientists don’t know about ghost sharks, their anatomy, and the relationships between species. I hope to fill these gaps and increase our understanding of these mysterious organisms. Having access to museum specimens and their associated data is critical for this kind of work, and after this summer I have a better appreciation for how much time and care goes into working with natural history collections.
I learned a lot about how integral collaboration between NOAA, the National Systematics Lab, and the Smithsonian Institution is to maintaining the impressive collections I got to work with. Many of the specimens I worked with were collected by NOAA Fisheries on expeditions such as the Smithsonian’s Southeast Pacific Biological Oceanographic Project. The scientists at the National Systematics Lab identify specimens from these expeditions, which can then be used by scientists like me to research these otherwise understudied species. My Hollings internship was only the beginning of my academic journey, and this experience will undoubtedly influence how I progress through the rest of my education and subsequent career.
