User:SB in STEM/sandbox

Personal Life
Burger grew up on a farm in Niskayuna, New York. As a kid she would bring home injured birds, snakes and salamanders that she could find. As a teenager she searched for Spotted Sandpiper nests, she would monitor them until they hatched, she would record the time it took for them to hatch and would check up on them everyday. She spent her days running the school store, wandering the neighborhood, watching birds, and climbing new construction.

She was a fan of biology and decided to take it in her junior year of high school. One day her teacher asked her to teach her biology class a lesson about genetics, the principle sat through the lesson. She was later called in to the principle's office and was told she was going to college. She went to SUNY at Albany and was going to graduate and teach biology to high schoolers. She was then told to obtain an MS degree from Cornell University. She eventually ended up at Rutgers and remained at Rutgers ever since. She funds her research and travels the world as an investment to her future. She then married Michael Gochfeld, and environmental physician.

Work Life
Burger was an instructor at SUNY college at Buffalo from 1964 to 1968, she taught General Biology, Ecology and Comparative Anatomy. She then became a teaching assistant in the department of Ecology and Behavior Biology at the University of Minnesota from '68 to '72. She was a Research Associate at Rutgers - Newark, Institute of Animal Behavior from '72 to '73. She was an Acting Director of an Ecology Program in the Spring of '78. In 1990 she was a member of the Biodiversity Center. She's been at Rutgers University since 1978.

A couple International talks and activities that she participated in include:

- Gave an invited symposium talk at South Africa Seabird Symposium in Cape Town, South Africa (1979)

- Organized a symposium on Advantages and Disadvantages of Coloniality in birds at the International Ornithological Congress in Moscow, USSR (1982)

- Organized a symposium on Effects of Development in Birds for International Ornithological Congress, Ottawa, Canada (1986)

- Was a representative and was invited to multiple SCOPE events and committee meetings from 1991 to 1993. One of which was in Cairo, Egypt in 1991.

- Became Chair: 10th Scientific Committee General Assembly of SCOPE in 1998

- Was a part of BBVA Awards Committee Madrid, Spain in both 2008 and 2010

Achievements
- Founding Member of the North American Butterfly Association.

- Served as a member of the Endangered and Nongame Advisory Committee since 1978.

- Director for Chemical Analysis for 15 years.

Awards
- Rutgers Presidential Award for Outstanding Public Service - 1994

- Distinguished Service Award (1996) - Colonial Waterbird Society

- Distinguished Author Award (1997) - NJ Studies Academic Alliance

- Gorenstein Award (2002)

- Honorary PhD, University of Alaska (2006)

- Women in Science Award (2006) – NJ

- Distinguished Achievement Award (2008) Society of Risk Analysis

- Brewster Medal (2009) American Ornithologists Union

Honors
- Tri Beta Biological Honorary Society

- Sigma Delta Epsilon

- Phi Kappa Phi

- Palmer Fellow

- Elected Member: Society of Toxicology

- Fellow: American Association of University Women - Fellow: International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry

- Fellow: American Ornithological Union

- Elected Member: Committee of 100, International Ornithological Congress

- Fellow: American Association for Advancement of Science (2009)

- Distinguished Achievement Award of Society of Risk Analysis (2008)