Hunt grew up in the literary haven of Columbus, Mississippi, the boyhood home of Tennessee Williams, and received his B.S.E.E. from the University of Alabama in 1976. He worked for Harris Corporation for two years in the areas of acousto-optics and surface acoustic wave (SAW). He then entered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he earned his S.M.E.E. in 1980 and conducted research in the field of auditory physiology. After four years with Bolt, Beranek and Newman, Inc. he entered the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana where he received his Ph.D. in electrical engineering in 1987. His research there was on acoustic charge transport (ACT) devices and the SAW properties of Gallium Arsenide.

Hunt joined the faculty of the Georgia Institute of Technology in the fall of 1987 as one of the original members of the Pettit Microsystems Research Center. There he founded the Microelectronic Acoustics Group which focuses on the development of ultrasonic devices that can be integrated with Microsystems. Among these have been, ACT devices, micromachined polyvinylidene fluoride-trifluoroethylene (PVDF)-based transducers for intravascular ultrasound, acousto-optic devices for tunable lasers as well as SAW and bulk acoustic wave (BAW) devices for wireless and chemical sensor applications.