Amy Burgin


Amy Burgin
  • Honors Faculty Fellow, University Honors Program
  • Associate Professor, Departments of Environmental Studies and Ecology & Evolutionary Biology

Contact Info

Phone:

Biography

Amy Burgin, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Environmental Studies and Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Associate Scientists at the Kansas Biological Survey. She earned her Ph.D. from Michigan State University and completed a postdoctoral program at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in New York.  Her research integrates across the fields of environmental microbiology, biogeochemistry, and ecosystem ecology. She is most interested in questions pertaining to how human activities, such as groundwater extraction and land use, affect aquatic ecosystems resulting in problems including declines in water quality and quantity. She has mentored over 50 undergraduate students through independent research projects including publishing scientific articles with former lab members. This research has received funding from the National Science Foundation, United States Department of Agriculture, Environmental Protection Agency and Kansas Department of Health & the Environment.

Burgin became involved in Honors recently through her first-year seminar, “Microbes Making Food,” a study on food and microbial processes. Burgin fondly recalled the importance of her own involvement in an honors program as a Coe College undergraduate. She looks forward to working with Honors students and encourages them to foster relationships with their faculty mentors.

“Find someone to invest in you—all of your professors are here because they did that exact thing. I’m still in touch with some of the college professors that were most important in my career,” Burgin said. “These are lifetime relationships; invest time in them and they pay dividends.”