Hello! I’m Gerry Carter, an Associate Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Princeton University. My lab studies animal behavior– mostly cooperation, communication, and cognition.
We are currently using experiments with vampire bats to study the causes and consequences of long-term cooperative relationships. Specifically, we are testing how female vampire bats form new nonkin food-sharing relationships, and if and how they regulate cooperative relationships on timescales from days to years by selectively allocating their help (partner choice and partner switching). More about that work here.
I welcome students to join our lab to work on any project that overlaps with my interests. What I call our “lab” is more a of a group or network of researchers that work on related topics.
About this website: It started as a blog when I was a very opinionated graduate student at University of Maryland (2010-2015), and a postdoc at The Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (2015-2018). It became a lab website when I started my lab group at The Ohio State University in Fall 2018. My lab moved to Princeton University in September 2024.
Carter Lab 