Cristina Zenato is a world-renowned shark ecologist, behaviorist, professional diver, cave explorer, educator, and ocean conservationist who has dedicated more than 30 years to understanding and protecting the underwater world.
Born in Italy and raised partly in the Congo, Cristina developed a fascination with wildlife and wild places at an early age. In 1994, she traveled to The Bahamas to learn how to scuba dive. The experience changed the direction of her life, and she made The Bahamas her home and the ocean her career.
Cristina is especially famous for her remarkable work with Caribbean reef sharks. After years of working with the same population of wild sharks, she has developed an extraordinary understanding of their behavior. Her work has helped challenge the idea that sharks should simply be viewed as frightening predators and has instead encouraged people to understand their importance to healthy ocean ecosystems.
Her work extends far beyond sharks. Cristina is an accomplished cave diver and underwater explorer who explores and maps submerged cave systems, helping provide information that can contribute to their protection. She became the first woman to connect a land-based cave with an ocean blue hole through underwater exploration.
She is also a PADI Course Director, advanced cave-diving instructor, technical-diving instructor, rebreather instructor, writer, photographer, and international speaker. She speaks five languages and has been inducted into the Women Divers Hall of Fame and admitted as a member of The Explorers Club.
Cristina is the founder of People of the Water, a nonprofit organization focused on education, exploration, research, training, and conservation involving our oceans and water environments. Her career demonstrates to students how curiosity about the natural world can develop into a life of science, exploration, adventure, education, and conservation.
