A Life Devoted to Placed-Based, Real-World Solutions

Dr. Charles G. Curtin

Agronomist and regenerative ag pioneer Wes Jackson once noted, "If your life's work can be accomplished in your lifetime, you're not thinking big enough." In that spirit, my work's been question rather than career-driven, centering on the large, intractable challenges that most individuals and organizations avoid. It builds on the development of design labs to test and refine innovative forms of social and environmental action.

I hold a Ph.D. in Zoology and an M.S. in Land Resources from the University of Wisconsin and have spent decades working at the intersection of science, policy, and environmental change. My work focuses on co-designing or co-leading large-scale, community-based responses to complex environmental challenges, including initiatives such as the million-acre Malpai Borderlands in the American Southwest, vast marine co-management programs in the Western Atlantic, and international collaboratives in Central America, East Africa, and the Middle East. Current efforts focus on building circular economies to sustain ecosystem regeneration in New Mexico, USA, and Panama.

I have also helped develop academic programs in governance and policy design at MIT and other universities and have taught courses in adaptive management, ecology, and complex systems at MIT, Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and elsewhere. Many people devote their lives to proping up and sustaining systems in decline, the broken or suboptimal. I work to envision a more vibrant future and finding ways to achieve it.