He received a Ph.D. in political science from Harvard University in 2014, where he was a graduate fellow at the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies. He previously served as a fellow at Stanford University's Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, as well as the Hoover Institution. Dr. Carter's research focuses on autocratic politics in the information age. He is currently working on three book projects: one on autocratic survival in post-Cold War Africa, one on autocratic propaganda, and one that examines the Foreign Agents Registration Act to explore the role of autocratic money in American politics.