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Carter Hunt is an Associate Professor of Recreation, Park, and Tourism Management, and Anthropology at Penn State University. His primary research interests lie at the intersections of environmental anthropology, political ecology, and the anthropology of tourism in biodiverse regions of Latin America. He and his students tend to utilize ethnographic methods to conduct field research on the impact of tourism on conservation, sustainable community development, and rural livelihoods around parks and protected areas. He also leverages an interest in conservation psychology to research the ways that different forms of nature-based travel influence one’s subsequent pro-environmental behavior, including conservation-oriented travel philanthropy. These efforts help to fully account for the contributions — and costs — of tourism for the conservation of biodiversity and endangered species, the sustainable development of local communities, and the awareness of the dramatic human-driven change occurring on our planet.

Hunt received his B.A. in Psychology from the University of Kentucky in 1997 and both his M.S. (2003) and Ph.D. (2009) from Texas A&M, where he was trained in an NSF-Integrated Graduate Education and Research Traineeship Program (IGERT) in Applied Biodiversity Science. He later held the Lang Fellowship, a Bing Fellowship, and a Woods Institute Postdoctoral Fellowship in environmental anthropology and Latin American Studies at Stanford University. He is a former Fulbright Scholar and Fellow in Sustainability Research with the Charles Darwin Foundation in Ecuador. He has published in the Journal of Sustainable Tourism, Annual Review of Environment and Resources, Annals of Tourism Research, Current Issues in Tourism, Tourism Geographies, and Human Organization. He generally works in regions of Latin America characterized by high levels of endemic biodiversity. Currently, he is carrying out projects centered on human-environment relations, socio-cultural change, and tourism-supported conservation and development in the Galápagos Islands.

At Penn State, Dr. Hunt’s teaching corresponds to these interests in biodiversity conservation and sustainable development. The on-campus and field courses he has taught focus on social and environmental sustainability, community development, environmental conservation, nature-based tourism, and qualitative research methods. He serves as the Director of the Sustainability Leadership (SUSLD) minor at Penn State and the Dual-title Graduate Degree Program in Transdisciplinary Research on Environment and Society (TREES). He was previously a faculty co-leader of the Penn State Parks and People Tanzania program and contributed to additional field courses in Fiji and South Africa. 

In addition to the Publications and Teaching tabs above, his work can be followed on ORCID, Academia.edu, and ResearchGate.net. Graduate students interested in pursuing advanced study in these interest areas under his supervision are encouraged to review further information about the Dual-title Graduate Degree Program in Transdisciplinary Research on Environment and Society (TREES), the LandscapeU NSF Research Traineeship Program, and the Department of Recreation, Park, and Tourism Management.

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RECENT AWARDS & HONORS

• Faculty Fellow, Rock Ethics Institute / Maurice K. Goddard Chair in Forestry & Environmental Resource Conservation, Penn State University (2024-2025)
• Penn State Emerging Academic Leader (PSEAL), The Office of the Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs (OVPFA), Penn State University (2024)
• HHD Faculty Sustainability Award, College of Health and Human Development, Penn State University (2023)
• Fellowship in Sustainability Research, Charles Darwin Foundation for the Galapagos Islands (2021-2022)
• Fulbright Scholar, United States Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs / Comisión Fulbright Ecuador (2019-2020)
• Emerging Faculty Outreach Award for Engaged Scholarship, Office of the Vice President for Outreach/Vice Provost for Online Education/The Office of Undergraduate Education and Student Affairs, Penn State University (2017)

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