Dr. Carrier is one of the most renowned experts on nurse sharks, particularly those found here in the Florida Keys, where he conducts most of his research. His primary research interests concern aging, growth, migration, and reproductive biology of nurse sharks. While much of his time in the field is spent in the Keys, his professional home is at Albion College in Albion, Michigan where he has been a faculty member for more than twenty years. 

Carrier and his students have appeared in 13 shows produced for network and cable television ranging from National Geographic Explorer and Discovery Channel specials to Florida Public Television documentaries and segments for Jack Hanna's Animal Adventures. 

His most recent studies document the courtship and mating behaviors of nurse sharks, which he shared with a group of almost one hundred campers on August 8, 2001.

"Nurse Sharks and Dry Tortugas"
August 8, 2001

Dr. Carrier opened his presentation with a short introduction about his background and how he became interested in sharks we he ran into one during his very first SCUBA dive growing up in Jacksonville. He teased the campers with the promise that he had a surprise for them involving the development of a new tool he referred to simply as the "critter cam." Using some frightening visual aids, he continued by describing some of the characteristics of sharks, particularly their ability to replace lost teeth within days. 

Dr. Carrier explained the shark's value to the marine ecosytem and how insufficient research has led to the collapse of many shark fisheries as well as the depletion of the shark population. Next he showed a National Geographic video about his research on the mating habits of Nurse Sharks in the Dry Tortugas. The video included the first footage ever seen of Nurse Sharks mating in the wild. Dr. Carrier hopes that his research will help unlock the secrets of sharks' reproduction and possibly create a model for the mating systems of other sharks. 

As the evening program began to draw near a close, Dr. Carrier kept his word and shared brand new, never-before-seen footage from his "critter cam," which is a videocamera that is clamped to fin of a Nurse Shark and records everything as the shark would see it. He showed only a few minutes of critter cam footage from the entire ten hours of video collected. 

Before departing, Dr. Carrier reminded the campers that the study he had just presented began on a flattop at Seacamp 25 years ago and it has since been published in over 2 dozen papers and been part of several television shows. After concluding his presentation, Dr. Carrier spent a long while visiting with a new group of eager future scientists.