Award-winning biology student modernizes shark research using digital art techniques

Natalie Donato, a third-year honors biology student, is submerged in the thrilling world of sharks. On a typical day at Oregon State University, this ambitious junior can be found creating 3D models of shark heads in a research lab and recently designed Oregon’s new shark license plate.

By diving headfirst into undergraduate research, she developed new ‘fin-tastic’ electroreceptor pore-mapping methods. She also used artwork to raise money for groundbreaking projects at the Chapple Big Fish Lab, the first dedicated shark research program in Oregon. By blending art and science as a career, Donato is on a mission to communicate scientific research to the public more effectively, starting with her passion for sharks.

“The ocean is this underwater forest that’s shrouded under waves; it’s an alien world we don’t get to experience as often as on land,” she said.

Natalie Donato smiles in front of her "Picture Pore-fect" research poster filled with blue and black details on how to map electroreceptor pores from 3D shark models.

Natalie Donato showcases her research project, funded by the summer undergraduate research experience (SURE) program, on mapping electroreceptor pores from 3D models of sharks.

Sinking teeth into undergraduate shark research

During her first term at Oregon State, Donato applied to the Undergraduate Research, Scholarship, and the Arts program (URSA). The award landed her a research internship with the Chapple Big Fish Lab, based at the Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport. That’s when she started to make waves.

“Sharks are more than just apex predators. Across the entire globe, sharks participate in every level of the ecosystem. They are the cogs in the whole ‘machine’ that make it run,” she said.

With research associate Kyle Newton, Donato annotated video-recorded movements of two local species of skates, which are an egg-laying species similar to rays. Skates and rays are evolutionarily related to sharks and share a key trait: their skeletons are made of cartilage instead of bone.

If skates potentially navigate the waters by sensing Earth’s magnetic field, then results from this type of research helps scientists understand how electromagnetic field sources, like underwater cables from offshore energy production, may impact their behaviors.

“When it came to choosing the best school for me, I realized what truly matters is access to hands-on experiences, and Oregon State offered exactly that.”

When that project ended, Donato was eager for more adventures.

Thanks to the summer undergraduate research experience (SURE) program, mentored under assistant professor Taylor Chapple, Donato launched her own research project. She wanted to digitally ‘unpeel’ a shark skin, instead of dissecting a real one, to map its electroreceptor pores.

To set the example, she created realistic 3D models of different types of shark heads by taking pictures of them from multiple angles and using photogrammetry software called RealityCapture.

Tiny spots are revealed by shining an orange light against a shark in the Big Fish Lab. Natalie Donato stands with a DSLR camera to capture a photo of another shark on the lab table.

On the left, the illuminated orange dots are electroreceptor pores on a shark. On the right, Donato takes pictures of a shark at different angles.

Each shark species has a unique electroreceptor pore pattern. By understanding where the pores sit, scientists can link that to how they capture prey, their habitats, ecology, head shape, evolutionary lineage and more.

There are more than 500 species of sharks worldwide, according to NOAA Fisheries. This means there is a lot to discover about what makes sharks unique, and building 3D models is just the beginning of understanding them at a deeper level.

“The variation in sharks makes them incredibly fascinating to study. Wobbegongs call the seafloor home, camouflaging across the ground and waiting to ambush their prey. But there are also basking sharks, which consume microscopic plankton in the water by filter feeding.”

Like the sharks, Donato wanted to be different.

Making a splash in science communication

Donato isn’t just a scientist. She’s an artist too. By embracing her creativity, she’s managed to communicate the science of sharks to others using graphic design.

Recently, she designed a new Oregon shark license plate featuring the salmon shark, thresher shark, and blue shark, which often call the Oregon coast home. Plate vouchers can be purchased for $40, with $35 from each sale supporting shark research, training, outreach and education for the Big Fish Lab at Oregon State.

Natalie Donato stands with the blue "Vibrant Ocean" license plate in front of the Memorial Union at Oregon State.

Donato reveals the brand new “Vibrant Ocean” Oregon license plate.

Using art, she continues to educate others how these big fish benefit ecosystems around the world. Now, with the Oregon Sea Grant, she’s collaborating with local researchers to create educational posters featuring hyper-realistic illustrations of all 15 of Oregon’s shark species.

For Donato, her imagination is the pen and paper itself. “I have aphantasia, which means I can’t visualize images in my head,” she said. “You don’t have to have an imagination to be an artist.”

Last year, she hosted a “How to Draw a Shark” workshop at Finside Out, a public event she organized as vice president of Integrative Biology Club and in collaboration with Ocean 11. On the big screen, she taught eager attendees how to draw the external anatomy of a blue shark.

“As I’m climbing up the ladder in academia, I want to help other people behind me so that when I reach the top, I’m standing there with a bunch of friends,” Donato said. “My best advice is to take the unexpected opportunities and make the most of them. You just have to start with one, and the connections and opportunities will follow.”

More of Donato’s work can be found on her Instagram, @nataliedonato.art.

A wide camera shot of the audience in a big circle room at Finside Out. With drawings of a blue shark on the oval screens, Natalie Donato stands at the center of the stage while teaching.

On the big screen, Natalie Donato teaches attendees how to draw a blue shark at the event, Finside Out, on campus.

Discovering her research passion for the first time

While volunteering to protect tidepools and nesting seabirds at Cannon Beach with the Haystack Rock Awareness Program in Oregon, Donato applied to Oregon State in 2021. She received an acceptance letter within three weeks. Despite being more than eight hours away from her home in California, she took the leap anyway.

“I saw that there were so many programs for undergraduates to get involved in research at Oregon State,” Donato said. “When it came to choosing the best school for me, I realized what truly matters is access to hands-on experiences, and Oregon State offered exactly that.”

Three weeks into her first biology course, Donato followed a tip from biology professor Nathan Kirk and teaching assistant Megan Davis to the Menge Lubchenco Lab, where she met John Dickens, the faculty research assistant at the time.

Dickens quickly hired her as a volunteer research assistant. “I started by counting tiny juvenile mussels under microscopes,” Donato said. “These mussels were collected from over decades of Dr. Bruce Menge’s work. And the fact that I was sitting inside a lab, working with other researchers, kept me coming back week after week. Then, they mentioned an opportunity called URSA.”

This opportunity reeled her into the Big Fish Lab, and the rest is history. Shark history.