At the moment, I am particularly interested in recruiting students and postdocs with the following interests, experience, or expertise:
- neuroendocrine mechanisms underlying “social bonding”
- the Bayesian approaches to analyzing social networks, e.g. social relations model in STRAND package in R
- using biologgers (e.g. GPS, RFID, or proximity loggers) to track associations of wild bats
Questions and Answers
How do I inquire about a potential postdoc? Email me with what you want to do (or what kind of work you want to do). Be sure to look into all possible fellowships that give you funding and independence. Examples include: NSF, Human Frontiers, Marie Curie (for collaborations in Europe), Schmidt Science Fellows, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, HHMI, and Princeton.
Am I taking PhD students? Yes, but the PhD program is highly selective and the decision is not up to me. That said, I am always interested in advising prospective PhD students who are motivated, hard-working, and passionate about research topics overlapping with my interests in animal behavior, sensory ecology, cognition, communication, or cooperation. My lab focuses on bat social behavior, but I would consider advising or co-advising students interested in any organism or topic where I can be helpful as an advisor.
Am I taking MSc students? No, I cannot.
How do you apply? If you are interested in joining my lab, you should first learn about the process of applying to the PhD program at Princeton at the EEB Graduate Program website. Admission to Princeton’s EEB program is decided collectively by the department’s faculty. Princeton’s EEB graduate program is excellent. Every PhD student gets a 3-year fellowship, outstanding support, and the faculty here are exceptional. The deadline for PhD applications is December 1.
Any advice for PhD application research statements? Treat “personal statements” as professional statements. Too many graduate application research statements start with describing their childhood love of nature. Instead, think about what you want to do or can imagine doing in the next 5 years, and state why doing a PhD in my lab is the best way to accomplish that goal. Try your best to address the following questions: What would be a possible research project you would do (or topic you would address) in my lab? Why did you choose that project? Why is it important? How would you do it? What skills would you need to acquire? How would I help you? Note: You don’t need to actually do that project if you are accepted, the point is to convey your interests and thought process. Here is some more advice for prospective graduate students and why you should not rush to get a PhD.
Why are you not responding to my email? Due to the many, many emails I get, I cannot always reply to every inquiry or draft research statement. You don’t need to ask me if I am considering new students (see above “Am I taking PhD students?”). Here is good general advice about emailing faculty about joining their lab, and good general advice about writing a research statement. If you ask me a quick question and I do not respond, it is not rude to email me again after 1-2 weeks.
Do I have to be accepted into the Princeton’s EEB graduate program to work with you? No. I can and do collaborate with students and postdocs advised by mentors at other universities. For example, I have had past collaborations or discussed future collaborations with Angela Freeman (Salisbury, MSc students only), Liz Hobson (U Cincinnati), Alex Ophir (Cornell), Dustin Rubenstein (Columbia), Angie Salles (U Illinois Chicago), Grace Smith-Vidaurre (Michigan State University), Sebastian Stockmaier (U Tennessee at Knoxville), and Jerry Wilkinson (U Maryland). Other recommended labs outside the USA include Laurent Brent (UK), Gloriana Chaverri (Costa Rica), Damien Farine (Australia), and labs (e.g. Meg Crofoot, Dina Dechmann, and Alex Jordan) at the Max Planck Department of Collective Behavior (Germany). If you have other possible advisors in mind, feel free to discuss that with me. Having a network of advisors as a graduate student or postdoc can be a great arrangement for a graduate student or postdoc. As a collaborator, I can serve as an external member on your PhD committee and help support collaborative research. If you have a project idea that you think I could help you accomplish, just reach out.
I’m not sure whether I should bother to apply given that the application fee is $75. Can you tell me my chances of being admitted? No but the best applications will have some or all of the following: (1) a strong undergraduate GPA (3.8+), (2) compelling ideas and arguments in the research statement written with logic and clarity that fit with your advisor’s long-term research program, (3) excellent recommendation letters, (4) relevant research experience and skills (e.g. fieldwork, coding), and possibly (5) one or more published papers or preprints. You can request an application waiver. See the department website.
Carter Lab 