Matt Hooper is the young marine biologist and shark expert who comes to Amity Island in Jaws after a string of deaths raises the possibility that an unusually dangerous shark is hunting near the community’s beaches.

Hooper arrives from the Oceanographic Institute with the scientific knowledge Chief Martin Brody needs and considerably less patience for the town’s attempts to explain away what is happening. After examining the first victim, Hooper quickly rejects the official suggestion of a boating accident and identifies the injuries as the work of a large shark.

His evidence-based confidence makes him an immediate contrast to both Amity’s politically minded officials and Quint, the veteran shark hunter whose expertise comes from experience rather than academia.

Eventually, those very different men end up aboard the Orca together.

Hooper brings modern equipment, biological knowledge, scuba experience, and enough enthusiasm for sharks to voluntarily enter a cage beside one that has already demonstrated an alarming interest in eating people.

That decision does not go entirely according to plan.

Still, Hooper survives the encounter and helps turn Jaws into more than a simple monster hunt.

He is the guy insisting everyone examine the evidence.

Preferably before the evidence swims up and bites somebody.