Scientists are tracking in real time a massive great white shark they've named Katharine. The shark has traveled over 4,000 miles through the Atlantic Ocean.

The team of researchers from Ocearch say the 14-foot, 2,300-pound shark is navigating the Gulf of Mexico and heading toward Texas.

After scientists tagged and located Katharine with a locator in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, last summer, they tracked her with pings down the Eastern seaboard, reports NBC affliate KVEO.

She pinged several times in central Florida in May and will probably arrive in Texas in the next few weeks.

Scientists say they are tracking her to get a better idea of where and when these sharks breed and where their nurseries are so they can protect those areas.

This month, a shark bit a 22-year-old South Florida woman in the Intracoastal Waterway off Fort Lauderdale.

Jessica Vaughn was swimming from a boat to an inner tube June 1 when she felt something hit her right leg. She was also struck in the face by the shark's fin, reports The Associated Press.

She frantically screamed for help, and her friends pulled her back into the boat.

"I jump in, start swimming out to the tube, and I get hit by something, and then I realize that my leg is cut open," Vaughn said June 3, according to Fox News. "It was scary. ... It felt like a punch, and I didn't notice the back of it until [my friends] pulled me up on the boat, and I could see teeth marks on the back."

After her friends got her safely back in the boat, they took her to a nearby dock, where Fort Lauderdale Fire Rescue personnel were waiting for them. She was then transported to a nearby hospital.