Joel Abraham ’18, is a Postdoctoral Researcher in Savanna Ecology at Princeton's Staver Lab

Since graduating from Yale in 2018, Joel Abraham has continued to build on the research that began with his senior thesis, earning his PhD in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology from Princeton University in 2025. He is now a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Staver Lab, where he continues to study how herbivores shape African savannas.

Joel’s senior thesis, Drought-Response Strategies of Savanna Herbivores, was inspired by summer research in South Africa’s Kruger National Park, where he investigated how herbivores adapted their diets and landscape use during and after a severe drought. His undergraduate research was later published in Ecology and Evolution.

For his doctoral and postdoctoral research, Joel has continued to work in Kruger National Park, examining how large herbivores shape local plant communities and expanding on the questions that first captured his interest as an EVST student.

“It is an immense privilege to get to study these incomparable animals and to interact with them so closely. It’s what I’ve dreamed of doing since I was a kid, and it amazes me every day that I get to live that dream.”