Biography
Carol A. Butler was born and educated in New York City. She graduated from the Bronx High School of Science, Queens College, and New York University where she received her Masters and Doctoral degrees. She has a private practice in Manhattan of psychotherapy for individuals and couples, clinical supervision, mediation of divorces, business and family disputes, and divorce coaching. She is a N.Y. State licensed Psychoanalyst. She has advanced training in mediation, arbitration, clinical supervision, and the treatment of sexual dysfunctions and addictive disorders. Her first book was about divorce mediation.
She became interested in butterflies in 2004, and has volunteered since then as a docent at the American Museum of Natural History's live butterfly exhibit. That interest led to co-authoring a book about butterflies, followed by a series of books about animals. Photography has been a long-standing hobby, and she had her first show of butterfly photographs in 2004. She is on the board of directors of The Lepidopterists' Society.
She is currently active in the areas of research and treatment of Alzheimer's disease and other dementias. She is a volunteer with CaringKind, running support groups for people who have a parent with Alzheimer's disease or another form of dementia.
Do Butterflies Bite?, published in 2008 by Rutgers University Press, was the first in the Q&A natural science series, followed by Do Bats Drink Blood? (2009), Why Do Bees Buzz? (2010), Do Humminngbirds Hum? (2010), and How Fast Can a Falcon Dive? (2011). She also co-authored Salt Marshes: A Natural and Unnatural History (2009) for Rutgers, and Knowing Horses (2012) for Storey Press. She has recently been writing articles about the value of exercise for maintaining cognitive health and bone density, as well as its value for lowering the risk of developing certain cancers. She has also written about the effect of gut health on exercise motivation, and about lifestyle modifications that can affect the risk of developing dementia.