He received his BA (1965) and PhD (1971) in Biology from Harvard University and began teaching and research at UCI in 1970. He has conducted studies of seabird reproductive ecology on the Pribilof Islands in Alaska and the Channel Islands in California, and of the foraging ecology of seabirds in the Bering Sea, the Barents Sea, the North Water Polynya, and the Southern Ocean. More recently, Dr. Hunt has participated in ecosystem-level studies of the southeastern Bering Sea and the Aleutian Archipelago.
He was instrumental in the development of the new Bering Ecosystem Study (BEST) and the GLOBEC regional program Ecosystem Studies of Sub-arctic Seas (ESSAS). He was Co-Chair of the Science Steering Committee of ESSAS from 2005 to 2011. He is a member of the Scientific and Statistical Committee of the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council and a Fellow of both the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Ornithological Union.