Robert Hurt is a Professor of Engineering at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. He received his Ph.D. from M.I.T. in 1987 and before joining Brown held positions in the Central Research and Development Division of Bayer AG in Leverkusen, Germany, and at Sandia National Laboratories in Livermore, California. During 2002 he was a visiting professor at the University of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. He currently serves as Editor of the materials science journal CARBON, and is on the editorial board of Combustion and Flame and Progress in Energy and Combustion Science. He served as Technical Program Chair for the international conference, Carbon2004, and in the same year received the Graffin Lecture Award of the American Carbon Society, which included a North American lecture series on carbon nanomaterials given during 2004 and 2005. Prof. Hurt also received the Silver Medal of the Combustion Institute in Naples, Italy in 1996 and an NSF CAREER Award in the same year.

Professor Hurt's current research focuses on nanomaterials and their biological and environmental applications and implications. Areas of particular emphasis are carbon nanomaterials and their role in nanotoxicology, nanomedicine, environmental adsorption, as well as fundamental self-assembly and interfacial phenomena. An overall goal of the Hurt laboratories is the development of functional, "green" nanomaterials co-designed for protection of human health and the environment.