Dr. McNutt earned his B.S. in Anthropology from Middle Tennessee State University in 2006, and his MA (2010) and PhD (2014) in Archaeology from the University of Glasgow, where he specialized in conflict archaeology. His research interests include utilizing technology such as LIDAR and GIS to answer questions about battlefield and conflict sites, power and dominance in the landscape, and the impact of violence on non-combatants. This includes the archaeology of internment and POW camps, where place becomes transformed through social interaction into a space of the dominant and dominated, with landscapes and architecture spatially arranged in a grammar of control and constant observation.

His past research has focused on developing and implementing a predictive GIS model for the most probable location of battlefields within wider landscapes. This GIS model was successively applied to battlefields ranging AD 1296 to 1745. Working with the Centre for Battlefield Archaeology, he participated in projects on various types and periods of conflict sites, ranging from the Battle of the Somme, to Bannockburn, to POW camps in Poland, to WWII aircraft crashes in remote locales of Scotland.

Several of these projects were part of documentaries, and sparked another of his research interests, which is the communication of archaeology public. Archaeology, is at its heart, a communal endeavor, and communicating its importance to the wider public should remain one of its guiding tenets. He also works as a consultant on development projects for television documentaries.