David R. Burgess, PhD (Cherokee)

Board Positions

Former President & Board Ex-Officio Member

Committee Membership

Transition

Institutional Affiliation

Professor of Biology
Boston College

Field

Cell Biology
Specialization: Cell Division

Biography

David R. Burgess is a professor of biology at Boston College and a former president of SACNAS. His Cherokee great grandmother was a medicine woman, his father was a teacher and junior high school principal honored for serving minority students and his mother was a homemaker. He was raised in New Mexico and Northern California. His current research, funded by the NIH since 1977, is in the area of cell division and on the science education pipeline for American Indians. He has received several awards including a Research Career Development Award from the NIH and the E. E. Just Award from the American Society for Cell Biology where he was recently elected to Council. He was recently elected Fellow of AAAS.

He has served on numerous national panels, both in basic science review and on study sections whose goal is to increase the diversity of scientists. He serves on the Minority Action Committee of the American Society for Cell Biology. He has presented a number of keynote addresses and lectures to scientific societies, universities and other organizations on his research and in the area of training disparities for minorities in the sciences. He served as a member of the Advisory Committee for the Office of Research on Minority Health at the NIH, the Advisory Committee to the Director at NIH, the NIH National Human Genome Research Institute Advisory Council, the NSF Committee on Equal Opportunity in Science and Engineering and the Biological, and Environmental Research Advisory Committee for the Department of Energy.

Contact & Elections Information

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