Crofoot was made a research associate at the
Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in 2010. She moved to the
University of California, Davis in 2013, where she joined the faculty in the Department of Anthropology. She investigated primates: from the behavior of baboons to the competition of capuchins. She was particularly interested in decision-making amongst monkeys, including how baboons make decisions and how capuchins cooperate. To monitor the behavior of primate troops, Crofoot makes use of
GPS tracking units. By attaching accelerometers to the baboons, Crofoot conducted the first detailed study of the movement and associated energetic costs of a group of wild primates. She combined experimental observations to computational predictions of how the groups would look if the baboons all moved at their own pace. and serves as Director of the department for the Ecology of Animal Societies. She first visited the institute during her graduate studies, but it was during her postdoctoral fellowship that
Egbert Leigh confessed to being "madly in love" with her. Crofoot made a formal complaint to the Director (
Eldredge Bermingham), who imposed restrictions upon Leigh, but they were barely enforced when Bermingham left a few years later. == Awards and honors ==