{"id":38844,"date":"2025-07-30T10:19:36","date_gmt":"2025-07-30T14:19:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/?p=38844"},"modified":"2025-07-30T10:19:36","modified_gmt":"2025-07-30T14:19:36","slug":"furman-grad-searches-for-all-the-sharks-on-netflix-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/furman-grad-searches-for-all-the-sharks-on-netflix-show\/","title":{"rendered":"Furman grad searches for \u2018All the Sharks\u2019 on Netflix show"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Furman University graduate is giving sharks the love they deserve on a new Netflix reality competition show, \u201cAll the Sharks<\/a>,\u201d which began streaming July 4.<\/p>\n

Brendan Talwar \u201911, originally from Louisville, Kentucky, is partnered up with fellow marine biologist Chris Malinowski as one of the teams competing to raise money for charities by identifying and photographing as many sharks as possible on \u201cAll the Sharks.\u201d Talwar, who studied biology at Furman before getting his master\u2019s in biology from Florida State University and Ph.D. from Florida International University, is a postdoctoral scholar at Scripps Institution of Oceanography<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"A

Marine biologist Chris Malinowski photographs a tiger shark on Episode 1 of the Netflix competition show “All the Sharks,” which features Furman graduate Brendan Talwar \u201911 in the cast. Photo courtesy of Netflix.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019ve worked in shark research and conservation enough, you get involved in all kinds of television programs,\u201d Talwar said. \u201cVery often, what we experience in the field with a film crew isn\u2019t what we end up seeing in the ultimate production \u2013 but that\u2019s what \u2018All the Sharks\u2019 is about \u2013 getting past the manufactured drama straight to genuine experiences and encounters with some of the most threatened animals on Earth.\u201d<\/p>\n

Talwar and Malinowski are one of the show\u2019s four teams tasked with diving the planet\u2019s shark-richest waters in search of these complex creatures. Their boats sailed the turquoise waters of the Maldives, the teeming ocean metropolis of Australia\u2019s Great Barrier Reef, the mix of warm and cool waters in Japan, the world\u2019s premiere shark sanctuary in Bimini, the Bahamas and the deep waters Charles Darwin sailed around the Galapagos Islands.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you get a chance to go to places like these and have a boat for three days, in a marine biologists\u2019 paradise, that\u2019s a playground for us,\u201d Talwar said.<\/p>\n

Searching for sharks isn\u2019t the tense, Jaws-inspired horror scene that the silver screen often depicts, Talwar said. For marine biologists, it\u2019s as routine as any job. When working up sharks and rays to collect data, Talwar said he often feels like part of a pit crew changing a car\u2019s tires in a race, emphasizing efficiency and safety.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve dedicated our entire careers to the study of these animals, it\u2019s not a scary thing,\u201d he said. \u201cThe ocean is a really magical place with so much to appreciate and be excited about, and we hope people will see that, especially young people.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Two

Brendan Talwar \u201911 found his love for marine biology at Furman University, and now dives with Chris Malinowski in the Netflix show “All the Sharks.” Photo courtesy of Netflix.<\/p><\/div>\n

That\u2019s a discipline and joy Talwar first found at Furman. He was able to have life-changing experiences during study-away trips with his professors and mentors to Belize, as well as a wilderness program called Wild Semester<\/a> in New Mexico. With support from a donor, Talwar also traveled to the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences between his sophomore and junior years to study coral reef ecology in an environment where shark populations had seen steep decline.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was the beginning of this rabbit hole,\u201d Talwar said of his study-away experiences. \u201cThose trips speak to Furman\u2019s engaged learning commitment to getting out in the world and actually seeing and experiencing things firsthand.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the goal, said Erik Ching, interim associate provost for Engaged Learning<\/a> and director of Undergraduate Research<\/a>. These trips are designed to help a student \u201cdiscern their vocational calling and their career pathway,\u201d Ching said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe at Furman are incredibly happy for Brendan to be having this level of post-graduate success with the highly visible \u2018All the Sharks\u2019 show on Netflix. We know that he will use the opportunity to make a difference for the better,\u201d Ching said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brendan Talwar \u201911 is among the teams of researchers and adventurers searching for sharks in oceans throughout the world in the Netflix competition series.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":401,"featured_media":38832,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,19,2711,3382,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","category-biology","category-engaged-learning","category-netflix","category-study-away-and-international-education"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/401"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38844"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38844\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40114,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38844\/revisions\/40114"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}