When there is a shark attack in Australia, Daryl McPhee is a name you will often see quoted in the ensuing media coverage.
The Bond University shark researcher's knowledge of the apex predator has helped people understand why attacks happen.
"It goes back to understanding our intrinsic motivators of fear."
Obsessed with the ocean
The associate professor of environmental science said he had always been obsessed with the ocean, even when he was a homeless teenager living with his alcoholic mother in Sydney.
"I had a passion for marine science as a little kid," he said.
"I wasn't introduced to it by my parents; I just love fish and fishing and everything started from there."
At age 13, Dr McPhee said he and his mother were evicted from their rental home in Sydney and they slept rough until they could afford to catch a train to Brisbane, with three suitcases and his prized fishing rod.
"She didn't have any plan," he said.
"While she tried to sort out where we'd live … there was a place in a crisis shelter and I was just young enough at the time to still be able to go there."
Catching a train to catch fish
The teenager would regularly catch a train from his crisis accommodation at Indooroopilly, in the city's inner-west, to Shorncliffe on Brisbane's bayside where he would fish.
He and his mother eventually moved to Shorncliffe and he attended Sandgate District High School.
"In the early years I didn't go too much, because I didn't have money to do things like excursions," Dr McPhee said.
"I'd go fishing for food, because fishing became the way that I fed myself."
It was advice from his high-school teachers that helped him eventually realise that an education offered him a pathway to a better future.
He knuckled down and studied diligently in his final two years of school.
"I chose what my passion was, which was science."
Higher education
The academic graduated from the University of Queensland with three degrees and has been teaching at Bond University on the Gold Coast for more than a decade.
The 50-year-old said his mother died around the same time as he started at Bond.
"Mum passed away from alcohol-related issues," Dr McPhee said.
"It was a long, slow and painful death."
Now married with two young children and two older stepchildren, Dr McPhee said he still made time to fish weekly.
"As I've come to realise through my own academic studies, fishing is very important in terms of mental health, particularly [for] men," he said.
"A lot of men aren't happy or predisposed to want to do things like yoga etcetera, but fishing is a mindfulness activity that works well for a lot of men."
Giving back
After a long career in his chosen field, Dr McPhee said he was in a position to give back, and was helping international students at Bond University by offering three annual travel bursaries of $2,000 each.
"Some of them struggle with financial issues and over the years my passion has come from teaching those United States and Canadian students and giving them the best possible experience."
That includes a week-long field trip to North Stradbroke Island where students study coastal and rainforest regions.
McPhee said he was also happy to teach students how to catch a fish.
