Craig Huneke earned his BA degree at Oberlin College and his PhD degree in mathematics from Yale University in 1978. He was a Junior Fellow in the Michigan Society of Fellows, and a Sloan Fellow. He gave an invited talk at the ICM in Kyoto, 1990. He has taught at both Purdue University and the University of Kansas, and is currently the Marvin Rosenblum Professor of Mathematics at the University of Virginia, where he is currently Chair of the Department. He has published over 150 papers; his main research interest is commutative algebra. Twenty-three students have completed their doctoral degrees under his direction.

He co-chaired workshops at MSRI in 1987 and in 2013, and also chaired the organizing committee of a yearlong program at MSRI in 2002–03. Other past service includes being on the Council and the Executive Committee of the American Mathematical Society. He is currently an editor of the Journal of Algebra and Number Theory and Collectanea Math.