​Curtis Suttle completed BSc (hons) and PhD degrees in Zoology and Botany, respectively, at UBC before moving to the State University of New York at Stony Brook as the Coastal Marine Scholar, and then to the Marine Sciences Institute at the University of Texas at Austin where he was an Associate Professor. In 1996 he returned to UBC where he is currently a Professor in the departments of Earth, Ocean & Atmospheric Sciences, Microbiology & Immunology, Botany, and the Institute of Oceans & Fisheries.

His active research program focuses on marine microbiology with an emphasis on diversity, biology and function of viruses in the ocean. He has authored over 150 scientific papers and has published in many of the most highly ranked journals including Nature, Science and Proceedings of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. As a frequently invited speaker at Universities and International symposia, as well as a commentator in print, video and television, he makes a persuasive case that viruses encompass much of the genetic diversity on Earth and are major drivers of global biogeochemical cycles. His scholarship has been recognized by being elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, appointed as a Senior Fellow of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, and as a recipient of the A.G. Huntsman, Timothy R. Parsons and G. Evelyn Hutchinson Medals in Marine Science. He is an active member of several scientific societies including the American Society of Microbiology (ASM), the Association of the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography (ASLO) and the American Society of Virology.