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Childhood
Growing up, Joanna Burger always had an interest in animal life and nature. She grew up on a vegetable farm in New York, and as young as the age of 8, she began helping her father in the fields by scaring away crows and doing whatever small tasks she could as a child. Her parents taught her about topics like the wild flowers growing around their house and the different types of birds nests they would see. This spiked her interest as she began bringing home injured animals that she wanted to take care of. Her favorite thing to do growing up was bird watching. Her interest kept growing as she became a teenager and Joanna knew early on that she wanted to broaden her knowledge about plants and animals.

Education
Joanna was not set to go to college. Instead, her school began her on a tract to become a secretary. During her high school years she took classes prepping her for a secretary job, but she always had an interest in biology and genetics. She decided her junior year that she wanted to take biology as a class. Being a woman in STEM, especially in the 50’s, Joanna was told she would not succeed in a class like that. Regardless, she took it and loved it. Her teacher was sick one day and decided to give Joanna a chance at teaching the class for him. The school was extremely impressed by how she taught the calls and told her they regretted setting her on a path to become a secretary. The principal explained they would tutor her and do everything in their favor to help her get into college. With that help, she attended SUNY at Albany, where she majored in Biology, and then got her master’s degree at Cornell University. She then taught at a small school for a few years, and then attended the University of Minnesota and majored in behavioral ecology.

Work at Rutgers University
She has traveled the world studying different animal species, such as gulls, Zebras, Wildebeests, Impala, Black Iguana, butterflies, Macaws, and Emperor Penguins. Some places she has visited to study these animals are Namibia, Kenya, Costa Rica, Brazil, Peru,and Antarctica. She used her own hard-earned money to fund research at Rutgers. The research focuses on people to animal interactions and its effect on environmental degradation, chemical and radionuclide contamination, habitat destruction, and the disproportionate burden on some populations. For example, “the assessment of the relationship between selenium and mercury in salt water fish” or the “Development of a conceptual model for unique exposures of low-income, minority and other environmental justice communities.” Another topic of research was working with The Department of Energy on ecological health and risk as a part of Consortium for Risk Evaluation with Stakeholder Participation. The abundance of research led directly to sufficient publications which opened the opportunity for grants. She has also presented papers at an EPA conference on Environmental Justice and a PA Fish Forum conference.

Books and Works

 * The Parrot Who Owns Me: The Story of a Relationship (2001)
 * Seabirds and Other Marine Vertebrates
 * The Black Skimmer (1990)
 * Birds: A Visual Guide (2006)
 * A Naturalist Along the Jersey Shore (1996)
 * Habitat, Population, Dynamics, and Metal Levels in Colonial Waterbirds (2016)
 * Behavior of Marine Animals: Current Perspectives in Research (1972)
 * The Northern Pine Snake (2011)
 * Predicting Occurrence of Area-sensitive Forest Birds
 * Oil Spills (1997)
 * Whispers in the Pines: A Naturalist in the Northeast (2006)
 * SEABIRDS ON ISLANDS: Threats, Case studies and Action Plans
 * Twenty-Five Nature Spectacles in New Jersey (2000)

Awards, Honors, and Patents
- Received the Distinguished Achievement Award from the Society of Risk Assessment - Received the Brewster Medal for the American Ornithologists Union.