When famed scientist Tracy Fanara – the triple Gator known as Inspector Planet – heard about the horror movie “Cocaine Bear,” her reaction was simple: Oh, please. You think bears and cocaine are scary?
She studies sharks ingesting cocaine, and the “scary” part, Fanara said, is not stoned sharks “but rather the chemicals that are impacting us. That is scarier than a random bear in the forest finding a package of cocaine.”
Cocaine sharks have been in the news of late, and Fanara’s name surfaces in many of those reports. Outlets from NPR to Forbes have reported on sharks consuming cocaine dumped in the waters off Brazil, quoting Fanara as an environmental scientist at the University of Florida (she works for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration these days, but, as a diehard Gator, she does not mind the UF nod).
She appeared in the 2023 documentary “Cocaine Sharks” – not to be confused with the 2023 horror movie “Cocaine Shark” in which mutant sharks attack after a lab explosion. And Fanara just wrapped a TV special on cocaine sharks for HBO in Key West.
The recent shark headlines have been amusing (The New York Times: “Not Afraid of Sharks? Well, Now They’re on Cocaine”), yet Fanara contends this is a serious threat.
“Cocaine gets people interested,” she told The Times. “But we have antibiotics, antidepressants, pharmaceuticals, sunscreen, insecticides, fertilizers – all of these chemicals are entering our ecosystem.”
Since the media feeding frenzy over cocaine sharks started in 2023, Fanara has been quoted in NPR, Al Jazeera, Science magazine, CBS, The Guardian and National Geographic.
But here’s the thing: This diehard Gator has been a science rock star long before Brazilian sharks tested positive for cocaine.
Fanara is the coastal modeling manager for NOAA. She remains in her beloved Florida but travels to Washington, D.C., every other week. She is a science communicator and environmental warrior working to keep toxins out of our waterways and protect marine life.
As Inspector Planet, the Internet/TV star explores science in fun ways that allow learning to sneak up on the viewers.
“I take an Earth-systems approach to all questions,” she said in a recent Zoom interview, with a shark-tooth necklace around her neck.
What did Inspector Planet the Cocaine Shark expert want to be growing up?
“According to my journals, I wanted to be an actress or a vet,” she said. “My dream kind of became reality.”
That is to say, she is on television, hamming it up but delving deep into science. She works with animals, particularly marine life. She also is no stranger to alligators, bears and other carnivores who become putty in her presence.
She grew up in Buffalo, N.Y., playing every sport available and walking to school “both ways in the snow.” After her first year at Hobart William Smith College in Geneva, NY, her parents moved to Sarasota, where they called often to crow about the warm weather. She knew about UF’s reputation for academic excellence and research. It was a natural fit.
She was working as a camp counselor when her mother called to tell her about the rejection letter.
“I didn’t get in?” she recalled saying.
So, she did what all students do when being rejected by a university 1,100 miles from home. She trekked to UF and knocked on every door to appeal her case.
She met Paul Chadik, Ph.D., who found a way to get her into UF; then she completed a five-year undergraduate program in three years.
Chadik said he does not remember Fanara arriving at his door with a rejection letter, but he certainly remembers Fanara. He’s a fan.
He recalls Fanara as smart – “a good leader,” he said. “She would always be positive and engaging.”
These days, he contends her greatest accomplishment is trailblazing.
“Women beget women in our department. Tracy is not only the spokesperson for environmental engineering, she’s also the spokesperson for women in engineering,” said Chadik, associate professor emeritus with UF’s Engineering School of Sustainable Infrastructure and Environment.
“The minute I got into environmental engineering, I realized they are the true superheroes,” Fanara told Tampa Bay NBC affiliate WFLA in 2019.
During her undergraduate studies, she worked at UF’s microbiology lab.
After graduate school, Fanara worked for a civil engineering company that specialized in land development. It was an interesting marriage, she said, because her interests and training were in protecting the land and waterways from the effects of development and other human-driven threats.
“I went back to school to find a better way,” she said.
She obtained her master’s degree in 2010 and then – after securing her own research funding – became a triple Gator with a Ph.D. in hydrology, chemical transport and water treatment through sustainable design.
While she was working on her Ph.D., she embarked on two other projects that would shape her career.
She taught in Alachua County middle schools twice a week, leading hands-on experiments. That prepped her for holding attention in a short-clip society.
Secondly, she and a friend created a video on contamination in UF’s Lake Alice. It would become the first video in her Inspector Planet series.
The video examined contaminants in the gator-infested Lake Alice, noting a lack of regulation that allowed pollutants into a water body that was once a sinkhole and, thus, a direct conduit to the Floridan aquifer.
Soon thereafter, the producers of the TV show “MythBusters” called, recruiting her for “MythBusters: The Search.”
“This was a pipe dream,” she said.
On that season in 2017, Fanara helped build an ejection seat for car passengers, duplicating a scene from “Fast and Furious” that concluded with the words “Ejecto seato, cuz!” Fanara made it to the Top 10 before elimination on “MythBusters: The Search.”
In 2020, she was recruited by The Weather Channel to appear regularly in “Weird Earth,” a docuseries about odd weather phenomena. The show is now in its fourth season.
Her schedule is dizzying. To get a better idea of this Gator’s resume and pace, consider the following:
Fanara facts:
- She served as the environmental health research program manager for six years at Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota.
- As a student, Fanara was on the UF team that won two consecutive titles (2013 and 2014) at the EPA Campus RainWorks Challenge.
- In 2017, Fanara and chemical/biomolecular engineer Tamara Robertson were featured in the Marvel comic book “The Unstoppable Wasp.” In 2020, Fanara and Robertson were animated science heroes in the comic book “Seekers of Science.”
- Her rap song “Polar Ice Baby” is available on inspectorplanet.com.
- Fanara goes on calls with licensed alligator trappers who relocate nuisance alligators to conservation areas before trappers with belts and barbecue on their minds can get to them.
- Her current companion is a 14-year-old mixed breed named Bambolina.
- She sits on the advisory board for UF’s Center for Coastal Solutions, as well as the UF Alumni Association board.
- Lastly: “I love UF. Best time of my life,” she said.