Deborah E. Burns began her teaching career in 1973 as a Title I reading and mathematics teacher in a rural K-8 school in Michigan. She has worked as a K-8 classroom teacher, as a middle school language arts specialist, and as a program coordinator for a seven-district consortium. She has taught in preschool, summer, and Saturday programs, in resource rooms, a psychiatric ward, an orphanage, and at the university level. She has written grants, professional development modules, journal articles, assessments, program evaluations, curriculum units, and three books. She has also designed and implemented classroom-based research studies and conducted program and teacher evaluations. For the past 15 years, she has been employed by the University of Connecticut’s NEAG School of Education as a program director, an assistant professor, a research scientist, associate professor in residence, and most recently in Cheshire as curriculum coordinator for the district. She is an active member of the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC) and has been a board member for the past five years. She is a member of the Curriculum Division and is co-chair of the annual Curriculum Awards Competition. Burns earned her bachelor’s degree in elementary education from Michigan State University in 1973. She pursued her graduate studies at Western Michigan University in clinical reading instruction and received her MEd from Ashland College in 1978 in remedial reading, administration, and supervision. She pursued additional graduate studies at Ohio State University involving administration, special education, and gifted education and received her PhD in educational psychology and gifted education from the University of Connecticut in 1987.
