Jasmin Graham was on a mission. The marine biologist wanted to change not only the public’s often misleading perception of sharks — in many cases, drawn from their harrowing portrayal in the novel “Jaws” and calcified in pop culture over the past 50 years — but also that of the people who study them.

Once a marine biology doctoral student at Florida State University, Graham understood firsthand what it was like to try to make it in the field — and to be one of few Black women doing it. The challenges she faced in academia led to her fateful decision to leave the program in 2020 and pursue a career as a rogue scientist.

Graham, 29, has since found success her own way, researching vanishing populations of sawfish, the harmful effects of red tides on sharks and even the local ecological knowledge found among Black American fishers.

In the same year she left graduate school, she teamed up with three other Black women to create Minorities in Shark Sciences, a global organization that promotes diversity and inclusion in the field.

Graham’s disenchantment with the traditional path to being a scientist — and how she overcame those bounds to forge her own trail — is explored in her new memoir, “Sharks Don’t Sink,” recently published by Pantheon.

Sprinkled between shark facts throughout the book, Graham also describes how she came to identify with the animals she studies. “When Black women fight back, we are seen as the enemy,” she writes, “just like sharks, who, more often than not, bite only when provoked.”

This interview with Graham has been edited for clarity and length.

Q: What do you wish people knew about sharks?

A: The image that people have of sharks is more of the exception, not the rule. People usually think about the big three: great whites, tiger sharks and bull sharks. The truth is, there are about 500 species of sharks. Most are small — the average size of a shark is about 3 to 4 feet long — and most live in the deep sea, so you’re not ever going to interact with or see them.

Some sharks are apex predators. But a lot of them are actually in the middle of the food chain, just vibing. There are a lot of them that are quite cute and adorable. Small and silly-looking.

Q: Explain the parallel you draw between the public’s perception of sharks and Black people.

A: Sharks have a bad reputation. They can’t catch a break in the media. There might be a shark bite, and maybe it was a little leopard shark, but what would be shown was a picture of a big, scary great white.

And similarly, in police brutality incidents, when somebody died, what got shown was the most thugged-out picture of this person. Yet people who commit very heinous crimes who are not Black get a graduation photo or something. I started seeing that, ah, this is the same thing and maybe we need to use similar approaches to tackling both of these issues.

Q: Did you ever feel like you were too young to write a memoir?

A: When my literary agent reached out originally, I didn’t know that I had anything to say. But then I started thinking about why my gut reaction was that I didn’t have a valuable story. And how I probably thought that, as a young Black woman who is nearly 30 years old, it may be because I haven’t seen a young Black woman who is 30 do something like this.

That felt like reason enough to do it: to be the example that it can be done, that you don’t have to live this whole extravagant life to have a story worth telling. A story that is unfinished is still a beautiful story. I decided to write this book so that the next person that looks like me who gets asked to write a book doesn’t hesitate.