Charles G. Curtin
A bit about myself. I was born in London, England, to noted World Historian Philip Curtin and journalist Anne Curtin. I spent much of my formative years in Europe and West Africa and, when not overseas, on a farm in southwest Wisconsin.
A former nordic ski racer and US Ski Team member, for me spending time in mountains, deserts, or on the ocean is a big part of my life. When not writing, my passions are canoeing, kayaking, hiking, biking, bluegrass banjo playing, old cars/trucks, and antique textiles. I live on a farm in the mountains of northern New Mexico with my partner Ilka and a tortoise named Bisque.
I have two adult children who have also followed international careers and actively engage in challenges in service to causes greater than themselves.
On the professional side of things, I hold a Ph.D. in Zoology and an MS in Land Resources - both from the University of Wisconsin. For decades I have worked at the nexus of science and policy, with a long-term interest in environmental change, large-scale socio-ecological experiments, and program design. Though working in a diversity of areas, the bulk of my professional practice is focused on developing community-based solutions to large and complex environmental challenges. To that end, I have helped establish several of the most extensive place-based collaborative research programs in North America, including the million-ac Malpai Borderlands conservation area in Arizona and New Mexico (and adjoining Mexico), cross-site studies spanning the Intermountain West, and directed the two million-acre Blackfoot Challenge in western Montana. I have also worked with fisheries policy and the co-management of marine resources through the development of the 750,000 sq mi Downeast Initiative in the Western Atlantic and fishery restorations on the coast of Maine.
In addition to community-based work, I’ve helped establish academic programs in governance and policy design at MIT and other universities with a focus on collaborative approaches to conservation and climate change adaptation and mitigation and taught courses in adaptive management, ecology and policy design, and complex-systems theory and practice at MIT and Harvard's Kennedy School of Government as well as at other universities. I also directed the Mckinney Flats Project in southwest New Mexico, which at nearly 10,000 acres, was the largest ecological experiment on the continent. I’ve also worked internationally, coordinating collaborative conservation projects in Mexico, East Africa, and the Middle East.I have authored more than 70 peer-reviewed publications, many popular articles, and several books and monographs (see the section on books elsewhere on this website). My books and articles have been cited more than 8,000 times.