Dee Carter graduated from the University of Otago, New Zealand, with a Bachelor of Science (Hons I) and undertook her PhD at Imperial College, London, where she worked on the plant pathogen Phytophtohora infestans, graduating in 1992. She then did an IMSERM postdoctoral fellowship in the Faculte de Medicine, Montpellier, France, and a NIHAID fellowship at Roche Molecular Systems, Alameda, California and the University of Berkeley, under the combined mentorship of Dr Thomas White and Professsor John Taylor. She has been at the University of Sydney since 1995.