Personal Summary

Colter Chitwood grew up hunting, fishing and exploring the woods and waters of northwest Georgia. His early love of the outdoors led to a bachelor's degree in environmental sciences at the University of North Carolina in 2005. Following graduation, he landed a job at the largest carpet company in the world doing project management and process improvement analyses for customer service. Two years later, feeling the draw of graduate school and wildlife ecology, he began a master's in fisheries and wildlife sciences at North Carolina State University. He graduated in 2010, stayed at NCSU to complete his PhD (2014) and then transitioned into his first postdoc position there too. During his eight years in North Carolina, his projects covered an array of topics, including white-tailed deer physiology, deer-coyote predator-prey dynamics, wildlife disease, habitat management, prescribed fire and human dimensions.  In 2015, he joined the Millspaugh Lab at the University of Missouri where he oversaw research on the restored Missouri elk population. When the Millspaugh Lab moved to the University of Montana in 2016, Colter jumped at the chance to live in his favorite state. In 2019, he joined the Lukacs Lab as a research scientist, where he is collaborating with Alaska Department of Fish and Game to estimate gray wolf abundance on Prince of Wales Island using camera trap data.