Carson Murray, Ph.D.
Post-doctoral Researcher
Lester E. Fisher Center for the Study and Conservation of Apes

Carson Murray received her B.A. in biochemistry from the University of Virginia in 1997. She served for two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in Endasak, Tanzania, during which time she made her first trip to Gombe National Park to follow chimpanzees in the wild. She formally studied the Gombe chimpanzees for her dissertation research and received a PhD in Behavioral Ecology from the University of Minnesota in 2006. Her dissertation work investigated the spatial and social correlates of female dominance rank. As a part of her research, Murray spent two years living and working in Gombe.

Murray is now a post-doctoral researcher at the Lester E. Fisher Center for the Study and Conservation of Apes. She is currently collaborating with Elizabeth Lonsdorf, Ph.D., and Rachel Santymire, Ph.D., to examine how maternal stress influences offspring health and development in wild chimpanzees. This research combines a new endocrinology project with a wealth of long-term mother-infant data and the ongoing Gombe Health Monitoring Project. She is also collaborating with Anne Pusey, Ph.D., at the Jane Goodall Institute’s Center for Primate Studies to investigate the social strategies by which immigrant female chimpanzees settle into a community.