Lori Hunter

Dr. Lori Hunter is Director of the Institute of Behavioral Science and Professor of Sociology at the University of Colorado Boulder. With over 30 years in the academy, Dr. Hunter has substantial experience in research leadership, interdisciplinary collaboration and student training and mentoring.

Dr. Hunter's research focuses on interactions between local environments and demographic outcomes such as human migration, aging, and health. Her current work focuses on links between population and environment in rural Mexico and South Africa. Dr. Hunter also examines demographic and economic change in small towns across the U.S., with an emphasis on the impact of such changes on community and individual well-being.

Hunter has published over 80 peer-reviewed manuscripts and many book chapters on these topics and is regularly invited to speak, especially on climate-population connections. She has offered commentary for the UN as the organization worked to integrate population issues into the Sustainable Development Agenda. She’s also consulted with the World Bank on migration, climate and gender, and her recent research on these topics has appeared in The Lancet, Global Environmental Change, Environmental Research Letters, Annual Review of Sociology, Population Research and Policy Review, Social Science Quarterly, and Society and Natural Resources.

Dr. Hunter has served on the NAS Board on Environment and Society, served as Editor-in-Chief for Population and Environment, a Springer journal from 2007-2017 and has served in a variety of review roles including on a standing NIH committee.