He is director of the Program in Tropical Biology and Sustainability, and co-founder of the Center for Integrative Animal behavior. He studies the causes and consequences of sociality and how animals cope with environmental change. He joined the Columbia faculty in 2009 after completing a Miller Research Fellowship at the University of California, Berkeley. He received his A.B. from Dartmouth College in 1999 and his Ph.D. from Cornell University in 2006..