Legacy Professorship Named for Groundbreaking Rutgers Ecologist

A legacy professorship named for Rutgers University School of Environmental and Biological Sciences (SEBS) Distinguished Professor Joanna Burger has been approved by the Rutgers Board of Governors.

For more than five decades, Joanna Burger has been a groundbreaking force in the field of behavioral ecology at Rutgers University.

From her early post-doctoral work studying brown-hooded gulls in the remote pampas of Argentina to long-term field studies across New Jersey, her career has been defined by fearless exploration, scientific rigor, and a deep commitment to understanding the natural world.

The Rutgers University Board of Governors voted Tuesday to ensure her extraordinary legacy will live on through the Joanna Burger Endowed Legacy Professorship housed within the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences.

This legacy professorship is the first for SEBS. Legacy professorships, approved by the Board of Governors in 2020, enable current, emeritus, and retired faculty and their families to create an endowed professorship that pays tribute to their legacy.

The professorship, which was made possible by a generous gift from Burger and Michael Gochfeld, professor emeritus in the Rutgers Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute, will support faculty in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Natural Resources who are advancing the study of behavioral ecology in innovative and impactful ways. It is the fifth legacy professorship established at Rutgers, but the first at the university named for a woman.

“When I came to Rutgers in the early 1970s, there were few women in the sciences,” Burger said. “But I found a home here—an academic environment where I could teach, publish, and follow the science wherever it led.”

That journey led her into marshes, bays, and forests to study species ranging from fiddler crabs and pine snakes to migratory shorebirds and diamondback terrapins. Her fieldwork, often initiated with minimal funding and maximum curiosity, grew into some of the longest-running ecological studies in the country.

The legacy professorship will provide support to faculty working in behavioral ecology—support that Burger knows from experience can be transformative.

“Understanding animal behavior is essential to conservation, management, and our broader coexistence with wildlife,” she said. “This professorship is about enabling research that might be a bit off the beaten path, or too new to attract traditional funding—but that has the potential to lead to important scientific breakthroughs.”

Equally important, the professorship brings recognition and visibility to the work of behavioral ecologists at Rutgers.

“Rutgers is a large institution, and it’s easy for individual disciplines to become siloed across campuses and departments,” Burger said. “This can spotlight important work, foster connection among researchers, and build a stronger sense of academic community.”

Her generosity in establishing this endowment reflects a lifelong commitment to giving back—to the university that nurtured her career, to the students she mentored and to the future of science driven by curiosity and compassion.

Burger’s passion for behavioral ecology began early. Growing up on a farm in Niskayuna, New York, she spent her childhood tracking bird nests among the zucchini plants, watching gulls follow her father’s plow, and learning from her parents to appreciate both wildlife and wildflowers.

“Farm life taught me that you must care for the land and the creatures that live on it—and that hard work, when driven by passion, leads to both success and joy,” she said.

That ethic has defined her decades at Rutgers. As a researcher, mentor, and trailblazer, Burger has inspired countless students and colleagues. With the establishment of the legacy professorship, her influence will extend far into the future—supporting faculty who are driven to ask bold questions, pursue meaningful discoveries, and shape the field of behavioral ecology for generations to come.