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Neil Carter seeks to identify and promote conditions that enable long-term coexistence between people and wildlife. He studies human dimensions of wildlife management, wildlife behavior and habitat, human impacts on wildlife habitat, protected area management, and other related subjects in order to advance wildlife conservation. Neil grew up in San Diego, CA., and received his B.S. at the University of California San Diego in Ecology, Behavior, and Evolution in 2003. He moved to Michigan in 2005 to conduct his Master's research in the School of Natural Resources and Environment at the University of Michigan. In his Master’s research, he developed an ecological model of Black Bear habitat suitability throughout Michigan's Lower Peninsula and combined those results with attitudinal survey data, which allowed him to map areas of potential human-bear conflict.
He currently is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife at Michigan State University. His doctoral research at the Human-Nature Lab/Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability evaluates the complex relationships between humans and tigers in and around Chitwan National Park in Nepal. He hopes to develop a framework characterizing tiger-human interrelationships that can be used to address challenging conservation issues in Nepal and elsewhere.
Neil is a 2011 CHANS Fellow granted from the Human-Nature Network/Coupled Human and Natural System Network, an MSU Distinguished Fellow and a NASA Earth Systems Science Fellow.