Susan E. Burns Email & Phone Number

Dr. Burns' research focuses on applications in geoenvironmental engineering, with particular emphases on the beneficial use of waste materials including dredged sediments, fly ash, and biomass fly ash, engineered materials, erosion control of soils on highway rights-of-way, and interfacial behavior of organic- and inorganic-coated soils. Funding for her research group has come from federal, state, and industry sources, including the National Science Foundation, the US Department of Energy, the US Army Corps of Engineers, the US Department of Education, the Georgia Department of Transportation, and Southern Company.At Georgia Tech, Dr. Burns is the Associate Chair for Administration and Finance in Civil and Environmental Engineering, where she is responsible for ongoing operations related to the School's budget, staff, space, information technology, and facilities. Previously, she was Associate Chair for Undergraduate Programs, where she was responsible for the operations of the approximately 700-member undergraduate student body, including an ABET accreditation visit for both the BSCE and BSEnvE in Fall, 2014. Dr. Burns is a recipient of the National Science Foundation CAREER award, the Arthur Casagrande Professional Development Award (ASCE), the Alumni Board of Trustees Teaching Award (University of Virginia), and the David Harrison III Award for Undergraduate Advising (University of Virginia). She was elected Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers in 2013, and is a registered professional engineer in the Commonwealth of Virginia. She was named the 2020 Engineer of the Year by the Georgia Society of Professional Engineers. Dr. Burns is a current member of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) committee on Corrosion of Buried Steel at New and In-Service Infrastructure, and past member of NASEM's Standing Committee on Geological and Geotechnical Engineering and Committee on Assessment of the Performance of Engineered Waste Containment Barriers. She is a past member of the National Ash Management Advisory Board, providing independent review of the process and results of Duke Energy’s coal ash pond closure strategy. Dr. Burns has served as the president of the US Universities Council on Geotechnical Education & Research (USUCGER), an organization of approximately 400 professors of geotechnical engineering in the US and abroad.