Carter Hunt

Carter Hunt

Title and Credentials: 
Assistant Professor
School: 
Humanities and Sciences
Department: 
Recreation, Park and Tourism Management

Carter Hunt is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Recreation, Park and Tourism Management at The Pennsylvania State University.  Between 2009-2012 he was a Postdoctoral Fellow in Environmental Anthropology at Stanford University mentoring under Dr. William Durham. His primary research interests focus on tourism-supported biodiversity conservation projects and the ways in which rural residents negotiate the livelihood changes associated with rural tourism development around parks and protected areas. Dr. Hunt has carried out research in the Guatemalan highlands, the Ecuadorian and Peruvian Amazon, the Galapagos Islands, the Pacific Coast of Nicaragua and in the Osa Peninsula region of Costa Rica.  At the Woods Institute for the Environment, Dr. Hunt worked intimately with INOGO collaborators during the initial phases of the Initiative, dedicating particular effort to field research efforts that provided data for the alternative future scenarios and the social diagnostic of the Osa-Golfito region. 

Dr. Hunt obtained his M.S. and his PhD from the Department of Recreation, Park, and Tourism Sciences at Texas A&M, and a B.A. from the University of Kentucky in 1997.  His dissertation ethnographically examined rural residents' reactions to the rapid development of tourism and ecotourism transforming the Pacific coast of Nicaragua.  He has taught undergraduate and graduate courses on the Anthropology of Ecotourism & Tourism, People and Parks, Indigenous Peoples and Environmental Problems, Social and Environmental Sustainability, Conservation and Development Dilemmas in Latin America, and Qualitative Research Methods.