Lucy R. Hutyra

Lucy Hutyra is an American urban ecologist who is a professor of earth and environment at Boston University. Her research uses a multi-disciplinary approach to understand the terrestrial carbon cycle. She was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2023.

Early life and education Hutyra was an undergraduate student in forest ecology at the University of Washington. She moved to Yale University as a graduate researcher, where she spent a year doing fieldwork. She moved to Harvard University, where she completed a master's degree and doctorate in earth sciences. Her doctoral work investigated water exchange in the Amazonian rainforest. After earning her doctorate, Hutyra returned to the University of Washington, where she spent two years as a research scientist learning about urban ecology.

Research and career In 2009, Hutyra joined the faculty at Boston University as an assistant professor. She was promoted to associate professor in 2015 and professor in 2021. That year she was also appointed Director of the Biogeosciences Programme.

Hutyra's research considers anthropogenic carbon dioxide and how urbanization impacts ecosystem characteristics. Her early work looked to quantify how the ecosystem productivity and dynamics change across urban and rural domains, map historical to contemporary patterns of landcover and develop strategies to scale her investigations and understanding. She became interested in how local and regional ecology contribute to carbon fluxes, and has demonstrated that they absorb and emit carbon in different ways depending on their surrounding soils. She has investigated how human-made boundaries and naturally occurring boundaries affect tree growth and carbon uptake.

In 2017, Hutrya joined the NASA Federal Advisory Committee on Earth Sciences, where she focused on carbon cycles. 2016 Harvard University Charles Bullard Fellowship 2022 Dean's Award for Excellence in Graduate Education 2023 MacArthur Fellow

Selected publications