Kurt is a Senior Fellow with WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities, supporting WRI’s heat-related initiatives. He comes to WRI from the Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center at the Atlantic Council, where he was Director of Extreme Heat programs. In that role, Kurt led and expanded the center’s global work to protect people and livelihoods from the growing risks and impacts of climate-driven extreme heat by delivering financial solutions, public engagement through technology, developing health-based warning systems for heat, policy development, and on-the-ground implementation.

In 2011, Kurt launched the Global Cool Cities Alliance (GCCA) and served as its executive director until 2021. Over that time, GCCA and its partners built a global network of over 70 cities focused on implementing passive cooling solutions to combat rising urban heat. He has led projects for the World Bank, the U.S. Department of Energy, Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation, and the Clean Energy Ministerial. Kurt developed and provided technical support to the Million Cool Roofs Challenge, which established local champions, markets, policy, and awareness for passive cooling solutions in 10 countries in Latin America, Africa, and South Asia that are particularly exposed to heat risk and a lack of access to cooling. Between 2019 and 2021, those teams deployed over 1.1 million square meters of cool roofs and laid the foundation for the future growth of passive cooling. He is the lead author of Primer for Cool Cities: Reducing Excessive Urban Heat, a publication of the Energy Sector Management Program and Global Platform for Sustainable Cities practices at the World Bank. In his prior role at the United Nations Foundation, Kurt focused on U.S. federal policy to promote energy-efficient buildings and expedited electrical transmission development for renewable energy.

He holds an MA from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and a BA from Wake Forest University.