[2][4] Gurtin received his Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (1955),[5] and a Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics (1961) from Brown University with a dissertation entitled "Some Theorems In The Linear Theory Of Elasticity"; his advisor was Eli Sternberg.
[8] Building upon groundlaying work by Clifford Truesdell and the conceptual framework proposed by Walter Noll in the 1950s, Gurtin applied geometric measure theory and dynamical systems to help clarify the basic notions and laws of thermodynamics.
[8] This work is represented by two books, Thermomechanics of Evolving Phase Boundaries in the Plane (Oxford University Press, 1993) and Configurational Force as a Basic Concept of Continuum Physics (Springer-Verlag, 2000).
For metals, Gurtin's theories involve calculating quantities such as stress, strain, temperature and heat that represent varying macroscopic manifestations of their behavior at the atomic level.
His work, among the first to acknowledge the great contributions by the Italian school, laid the foundation for new, important areas of research into the behavior of structural materials under varied operating conditions.