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Center for Shark Research
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 In 1957, Sid Galler of ONR asked Perry to chair the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS) Shark Research Panel, which remained one of his primary research activities until 1970. His task for ONR and the shark panel was to travel around the world and stimulate and coordinate programs in shark research, as well as conduct his own research projects on sharks. ONR could not have found a better man for the job. Perry recognized that, for the Navy to deal with the shark issue, they needed to know much, much more about the basic biology and behavior of the animals. A simple hit-or-miss effort to find a universal shark repellent would not suffice.
And so Perry convinced ONR to support a broad program in basic research, opening the door to a new era of scientific studies on sharks around the world. That era included Albert Tester's work in Hawaii, Gilbert Whitley's studies in Australia, and research at the J.L.B. Smith laboratory in South Africa, among many others. Practically every thread of contemporary research on the biology and behavior of sharks since 1960 can be traced back to the ONR program guided by the scholarly leadership of Perry Gilbert.
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 Perry's own shark research flourished during this period. One of his favorite places to work was the Lerner Marine Laboratory, an experimental field station operated in Bimini, Bahamas, by the American Museum of Natural History. The laboratory was equipped with large pens that allowed for the study of large, active sharks under somewhat controlled and seminatural conditions. Awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship to work at Lerner in 1957 (and later in 1963, he was awarded a second Guggenheim to work at Scripps), Perry rolled up his sleeves and began to investigate "what makes sharks tick." From 1960 to 1969, he published more than 40 articles on sharks, including papers on their vision, chemoreception, electrocardiography, electroencephalography, reproduction, bite force, distribution, attack behavior, and antishark methods.
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 Also during this period, two of his most important collaborative works appeared. Both were books on shark biology, spearheaded and edited by Perry with chapters written by the leading experts of the time. The first was Sharks and Survival (Gilbert, 1963), a collection of review papers on subjects ranging from shark distribution, sensory biology, and behavior to shark attack and antishark measures. Perry recruited such notables as J.A.F. Garrick, Stewart Springer, Eugenie Clark, Al Tester, John Randall and J.L.B. Smith to contribute chapters to the book.
The second was Sharks, Skates, and Rays (Gilbert et al., 1967), which Perry coedited with Robert Mathewson and David Rall. This volume resulted from an extraordinary symposium held at the Lerner laboratory in 1966 and included papers on shark taxonomy, anatomy, physiology, and life history. Among the contributors were Tom Thorson, Carter Gilbert, Shelly Applegate, Sandy Moss, Sonny Gruber, and Don Nelson. Both books remain required items in the personal libraries of serious researchers and students of shark biology.
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