 From 1993 to 1999, Hibbett was a postdoctoral researcher and then a research associate in the laboratory of Michael Donoghue in the Harvard University Herbaria.He received his Bachelor of Arts from the Botany Department of University of Massachusetts Amherst and his Ph.D. from the Botany Department of Duke University.In 2007, Hibbett led the publication of a comprehensive, phylogenetically-based classification scheme for the Kingdom Fungi with a long list of international taxonomic specialists, which has remained the standard framework for the higher classification of these organisms.