George Hurtt earned a B.A. in Biology from Middlebury College in 1990. His advanced degrees are in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. In 1992 he received a M.S. from the University of Connecticut. In 1994 he received a M.A., and in 1997 a Ph.D., from Princeton University. He was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Princeton prior to joining the faculty at the University of New Hampshire in 1998.

Dr. Hurtt is interested in the theory and application of community and ecosystem ecology. His primary approach is to combine mathematics and data to develop models for understanding and predicting the structure and dynamics of ecological systems. He has published on a wide range of topics including: the role of dispersal in the dynamics and structure of plant communities, latitudinal and elevational gradients in biodiversity, and ocean and terrestrial ecosystem models for use in studies of the global carbon cycle and global climate change. Current research is focused on the development and application of mathematical models to address issues such as: the sustainability of land-use practices, the effects of disturbances on ecosystem structure and function, and interactions between the biosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere. He is involved in several collaborative research projects including the Large Scale Biosphere-Atmosphere Experiment in South America, the North American Carbon Program, and efforts to develop global carbon system and land surface models using NASA's Earth Observing System. He is a coauthor and scientific spokesperson for the New England Regional Assessment of the Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change, a lead author of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, and has testified to both the New Hampshire Legislature and U.S. Congress on the science of global change.

Dr. Hurtt teaches at both the undergraduate and graduate level. His introductory course Global Biological Change investigates major biological changes on the planet and engages over 100 students per year. His advanced course Earth System Science was developed with NASA support to provide a new approach to the subject and is described in a publication in the Journal of Geoscience Education. Dr. Hurtt directs Research & Discover, a multi-year internship/fellowship program that has attracted and supported literally dozens of science students. He was the founding chairperson of the UNH Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering Symposium, an editor of the international journal Ecology Letters, and is a contributing faculty member of Faculty of 1000. He was recognized as a University Outreach Scholar in 2004.

Dr. Hurtt's Global Ecology Lab