George Robert Carlsen was born April 15, 1917, in Bozeman, Montana. He received four degrees in English at the University of Minnesota, taking his B.A. in 1939 and his B.S. in 1940. He taught at Washburn High School in Minneapolis, Minnesota, from 1940 to 1942 before receiving his M.A. in 1943. Carlsen took his Ph. D. in 1948 under the guidance of the highly regarded educator Dora V. Smith.

During 1942-1947, Carlsen was an instructor in English and education at the University of Minnesota. He served as associate professor at the University of Colorado from 1947 to 1952. From 1952 to 1958, he was associate professor of curriculum and instruction at the University of Texas at Austin. While at the University of Texas in 1953, Carlsen and James I. Brown of the University of Minnesota designed the Brown-Carlsen Listening Comprehension Test, an achievement test designed for secondary school students.

Carlsen joined the faculty of the State University of Iowa as professor of English in June 1958. That fall he succeeded Raymond Kehl as head of English in University High School, a position he held until the school closed in 1972. Until his retirement in 1982, he served concurrently as professor of English and education. He researched methods of molding adolescents into avid readers. Two graduate courses he taught were "Literature for Adolescents" and "Recent Developments in Adolescent Literature." In 1982, the University of Iowa Foundation established an account for the G. Robert Carlsen Adolescent Literature Collection, housed in the University of Iowa Libraries' Special Collections Department.

Carlsen was recruited to serve in the National Council of Teachers of English in June 1955 as chair of the Senior High School Book List Committee. He continued his service as the second vice-president in 1959, first vice-president in 1961, and president for 1961-1962.

In other professional activities, Carlsen was editor of the Themes and Writers Series for McGraw Hill Publishing Company, as well as The English Journal.

He met Ruth Mary Christoffer at the University of Minnesota during the years they were students. The couple married in 1941 and they had four children, Christopher, Peter, Kristin, and Jane. Ruth was the author of eight children's books published during the 1950s through the 1970s. A bronze relief panel dedicated to her works may be found on the Iowa Avenue Literary Walk in Iowa City. George Robert Carlsen died December 13, 2003.