Now – October 2017, the Smithsonian Institute has awarded me with a fellowship to finish collecting data from lab and field experiments on vampire bat social behavior with Rachel Page at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama.
November 2017 – August 2018, the Humboldt Foundation has awarded me a fellowship to learn more about social network analysis, resampling methods, and simulations in collaboration with Damien Farine at the Department of Collective Behavior, Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, in Germany.
August 2018, I will be back in the USA working in the Department of Evolution, Ecology and Organismal Biology at The Ohio State University as a tenure-track assistant professor of biology. I will also continue my collaborations with the Organization for Bat Conservation.
This is an exciting time, and the challenge for me is to make the very most of it! I find myself in the unbelievably fortunate and privileged position of being gifted the freedom to do what I love, and given the resources to do it as well as I can. For this, I owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to my recent mentors, Jerry Wilkinson, John Ratcliffe, and Rachel Page. Most of all, I thank everyone on Team Vampire.
Work as hard as much as you want to on the things you like to do the best. Don’t think about what you want to be, but what you want to do! —Richard Feynman
Carter Lab 
Gerry what wonderful wonderful news. My hardiest congratulations on your landing a job at Ohio State!!!! Bravo. Let the data flow and reproduce. I so hope there is some good land for growing crops, herbs, flowers and all the beautiful riches of the earth that Michelle is so deeply connected to. Best wishes ed
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Yes, Michelle has been a Bat Lab Manager and community garden manager, but she’s excited to go back to farming!
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Congratulations on your fellowships. I enjoy reading your reports.
Let us get together when you move to Columbus. I live in Powell, OH a northern suburb of Columbus. My husband and I are docents at the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium. I would enjoy giving you a tour, especially of our Pteropus fruit bats. One of our bats is P. vampyrus . I often have to explain that the bats are fruit eaters, not vampires. I can then tell them about vampires including the blood sharing.
Best wishes for continued success.
Mary
Mary D Smith, CP
217 Slate Run Dr
Powell, OH 43065
parliamary@insight.rr.com
740-548-7567
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Yes, that sounds lovely! Let’s definitely get together when I arrive in Ohio and see the Pteropus! I first saw a Pteropus when I was 2 or 3 years old. I was hypnotized. That’s how I got into bats. Later, when I was about age 7 or so, I really wanted one as a pet. “And he would live in my room and we would eat mangoes and bananas together”. I didn’t think about how they like to poop and can pee on everything, haha.
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Woohoo!! So happy for you Gerry!
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Congrats!
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