Contributor

Edward Burger

President, Southwestern University

Dr. Edward Burger is President of Southwestern University as well as a professor of mathematics, and an educational and business consultant on thinking, innovation, and creativity. He has delivered over 700 addresses worldwide at venues including The Smithsonian Institution, Microsoft Corporation, The World Bank, The International Monetary Fund, the U.S. Department of the Interior, The New York Public Library, and the National Academy of Sciences. He was the Francis Christopher Oakley Third Century Professor of Mathematics at Williams College. He is the author of over 70 research articles, books, and video series (starring in over 4,000 on-line videos). His most recent book, "The 5 Elements of Effective Thinking," published by Princeton University Press has been translated into over 20 languages world-wide. Burger was awarded the 2001 Mathematical Association of America (MAA) Deborah and Franklin Tepper Haimo National Award for Distinguished Teaching of Mathematics. The MAA also named him their 2001-2003 Polya Lecturer. In 2004 he was awarded the MAA Chauvenet Prize—the most prestigious writing prize given by the MAA—and in 2006 he was a recipient of the MAA Lester R. Ford Prize. In 2007, 2008, and 2011 he received awards for his video work. In 2006, Reader’s Digest listed Burger in their annual “100 Best of America” as America’s Best Math Teacher. In 2010 he was named the winner of the Robert Foster Cherry Award for Great Teaching—the largest and most prestigious prize in higher education teaching across all disciplines in the English speaking world. Also in 2010, he starred in a mathematics segment for NBC-TV on the Today Show and throughout the 2010 Winter Olympic coverage. That television appearance won him a 2010 Telly Award. The Huffington Post named him one of their 2010 Game Changers: “HuffPost’s Game Changers salutes 100 innovators, visionaries, mavericks, and leaders who are reshaping their fields and changing the world.” In 2012, Microsoft Worldwide Education selected him as one of their “Global Heroes in Education,” and the following year he was inducted as an inaugural Fellow of the American Mathematical Society. In 2014, Burger was elected to The Philosophical Society of Texas. Today he has a weekly, lively program on higher education and thinking produced by NPR's Austin affiliate KUT. The series is aptly called Higher ED.