The FINstitute Capability Statement

Accelerating Shark Science Through Student Power: A Case Study with Spot A Shark Australia

Who We Are

The FINstitute International is a global consortium of passionate student scientists, early-career researchers,conservationists and mentors dedicated to advancing shark and ray conservation through education, fieldwork, and strategic collaboration.

We connect scientific organisations with student-led teams trained to deliver meaningful contributions to real-world conservation goals at scale.

Case Study: Spot A Shark Injury Assessment Collaboration

Challenge:

The Spot A Shark team had thousands of Grey Nurse Shark photos awaiting analysis, but lacked the human capacity to review them for injuries and metadata, slowing down conservation outcomes.

What We Delivered:

We activated two rounds of trained student volunteers to complete injury assessments on over 5,000 images in total. Our students filled in missing data fields (e.g., sex, age estimates, injury observations) and colour-coded images based on quality turning unused data into a scientifically viable, organized dataset in record time.

What Our Partners Said

“The team noticed things that we had missed. The FINstitute has enriched our dataset by a million.”
— Sarah Han De Beaux, President, Spot A Shark

“This data is now informing a scientific paper on shark injuries and may even help advocate for protection at a federal level.”

What Our Students Said

"So amazing to be part of something so important."
"This was the most meaningful thing I’ve done in my degree so far."
"I’m grateful to contribute to real-world shark science and gain practical skills."

Our Model: High Impact, Low Overhead for You

We know that onboarding and volunteer management are major bottlenecks for research organisations. That’s why we handle all of it.


Here's how it works:

  1. You train us (Aliah and Luca) once — via a call or a short recorded session.

  2. We handle student onboarding, create guides, field questions, and ensure data quality.

  3. You receive fully analysed, structured data in your preferred format — and a powerful network of young scientists invested in your mission.

You don’t need to run repeated volunteer inductions, answer hundreds of DMs, or manage new trainees. We do it for you.

Let’s Collaborate

The FINstitute can bring motivated, conservation-minded students into your project to help:

  • Process large volumes of ecological data

  • Create clean, usable datasets for publication

  • Empower the next generation of shark scientists

  • Amplify your organisation’s mission and momentum

We’re already working toward the same goals. Let’s get there faster together.

This collaboration with Spot A Shark is just one example of what we are capable of. We are actively seeking partnerships with NGOs, researchers, research students and anyone who is working towards a meaningful goal in shark conservation. We truly believe that we all have the same overarching goal for the future of our oceans, and that the only way to get there, is to work together. We, as recent graduates, also recognize how hard it is to get the skills and knowledge needed to get hired in this field of shark conservation, so we want to create the opportunities we wish we had while in Uni to contribute in a meaningful way to shark conservation. 


While we already have preliminary infrastructure in place to handle remote analysis of photo ID sets as demonstrated above, we are very open to hearing any other ideas on how we can help you that you might have! No idea is too silly and we will be honest with you from the start about what is realistic from our end. Types of projects that need a lot of hands/eyes, ones that can be done from anywhere in the world (video analysis, BRUV reviews, photo IDs, literature reviews, science communication and social media help, etc.) are definitely ones we can work with you on. 

Let us be the catalyst for your work. Please reach out and send this around to your networks! Thank you :)


📩 Contact:
Aliah Banchik & Luca Hoffecker | theFINstituteInternational@gmail.com
Co-Founders, The FINstitute