Bob Carter is a palaeontologist, stratigrapher, marine geologist and environmental scientist with degrees from the University of Otago (NZ; BSc Hons) and Cambridge University (UK; PhD). He has held staff positions at the University of Otago (Dunedin) and James Cook University (Townsville), where he was Head of the School of Earth Sciences 1981–1999 and an Adjunct Research Professor thereafter. He has published research papers on climate change, sea-level change, palaeontology and stratigraphy, based on field studies of Cenozoic sediments from the Australasian region and supported by grants from the Australian Research Council (ARC). In 1998, he was Co-Chief Scientist on Ocean Drilling Leg 181, Southwest Pacific Gateways, a cruise that made fundamental contributions to our knowledge of climate change in southern mid-latitudes.