Reading the Bite: Lisa Whitenack Advances Shark Science at Allegheny College

Ask Lisa Whitenack what she studies, and you'll get an answer that's part biology, part detective work, and just a little daring. The Allegheny College professor of biology and director of faculty development has built her career around a deceptively simple question: What can a bite tell us about the shark that made it?

For Whitenack, every puncture, scratch, and scar is a clue to something bigger; how sharks hunt, what they eat, and how they fit into fragile marine ecosystems.

Whitenack's fascination with sharks began early, though she didn't imagine a career in shark science until college.

"My thesis advisor, a sea star paleontologist, handed me a box of 300-million-year-old shark teeth and said, 'I know you like things with backbones better than sea stars. You should look at these,'" she recalls. "I wanted to know why those teeth were shaped so differently from the broad, triangular teeth we typically think shark teeth look like. That kicked off my entire career of trying to link how shark teeth are shaped to how they function."

At Allegheny, Whitenack and her students re-create shark bites in the lab using creative setups. "We glue teeth to PVC teeter-totters, jam them into fish from a grocery store, and then analyze the force needed to do that and what the puncture marks look like," she says.

That lab work helps interpret real-world data. "Out in the wild, the shark is moving and the prey is moving, something we can't simulate in the lab," she explains.

Her early doctoral research also produced a now widely used tool: a method to estimate shark size from bite marks, based on jaw circumference and interdental distance, which is the space between tooth tips. Developed with the International Shark Attack File and colleagues in her doctoral lab, the model has become useful in both forensics and biology.

That work eventually led to Whitenack's current collaborations with Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, Florida, and New College of Florida, analyzing shark bite marks on the resident dolphin population in Sarasota Bay. These incidents have increased over the past decade, and the research helps identify which shark species are responsible and why.

Mote also had been documenting bites on eagle rays and little devil rays and asked Whitenack if she had a student interested in studying those bite marks.

That's where Lindsay Ross '27, a biologymajor and studio art minor from Pittsburgh, comes in. A student in Whitenack's marine biology class, Ross spent the past year measuring and analyzing shark bite photos provided by Mote.

"Doing this project taught me about how to look at interactions between sharks and rays," Ross says. "Additionally, it allowed me to practice estimating the likely shark species that caused the bite by looking at both the shape of the bite as well as the distance between teeth marks on the bite."

Ross credits Whitenack for her mentorship. "Dr. Whitenack was a huge help to me for introducing me to, and getting me up to speed enough with these concepts so that I was able to work alongside her and the scientists at Mote Laboratory."

This past summer, Whitenack and Ross presented their research, "Bite-Sized Insights: Estimating Shark Size and Species from Bite Marks on Aetobatus narinari and Mobula hypostoma," at the 2025 Joint Meeting of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists in St. Paul, Minnesota.

"Overall, this experience really helped introduce me to what it is like to do new research, which I find very valuable to be able to learn at an undergraduate level," Ross adds.

Each bite mark contributes to a deeper understanding of shark behavior. "At least one-third of sharks and rays are currently threatened with extinction," Whitenack says. "If we can get a better understanding of what they are eating and where they are eating, that adds information that can be used for plans to protect these sharks. Every bit of information helps."

Whitenack is now updating her original 2009 shark-bite paper with colleagues at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the University of Southern Indiana. She's also seeking more data on hammerhead species, which often prey on rays. A recent research trip to Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology expanded her data set.

"I'm hoping to find a student to work on this project in the spring," she says. "We'll be getting some shark jaws on loan from various museums."

Fifteen years into her Allegheny career, Whitenack still thrives on helping students uncover new discoveries, sometimes one bite mark at a time.