Robert C. Burns
Dr. Robert C. Burns is a professor of Natural Resources in the West Virginia University School of Forestry and the Environment, and a former career military officer. He served School Director of the WVU School of Forestry and Natural Resources from 2016—2023. Burns is Fellow of ABRATUR—the International Academy for the Development of Tourism Research in Brazil (Academia Internacional para o Desenvolvimento da Pesquisa em Turismo no Brasil), he was a 2022 Fulbright Scholar; he was named as a Fellow in The Academy of Leisure Sciences in 2022; and he was awarded the Society of American Foresters Award in Forest Science in 2019. Burns is a 2020 graduate of the LEAD 21 leadership academy, and he serves nationally as Executive Board member of the National Association of University Forest Resource Programs (NAUFRP), and US non-governmental representative to the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO). Burns is a 2024 recipient of the WVU Division of Forestry Alumni Association Impact Award. He is a 2024 member of a White House interagency working group of the Subcommittee on the Frontiers of Benefit-Cost Analysis, the Ecosystem Services Interagency Working Group (ES IWG) focuses on ecosystem services effects in benefit-cost analysis, co-chaired by the Office of Science and Technology Policy and the Department of the Interior Office of Policy Analysis, and 15 different federal agencies. He is co-editor of the 2016 book entitled Outdoor Recreation Planning, a primer for understanding land use planning on public lands and water. He is past Chief Editor of the Journal of Park and Recreation Administration and is a member of the Society of American Foresters, The Academy of Leisure Sciences, Society of Natural Resources, and the Geological Society of America. He has co-authored nearly 100 peer-reviewed publications on the human dimensions of land and water resources.
He has secured over $30 million in external research funding ($10 million as Primary Investigator) from various federal agencies over the past two decades, and has been co-PI of many additional research efforts. Burns’ current research efforts focus on land and water uses, with funding from NOAA, NSF, US Forest Service, and NIFA. In his most recent research effort, Dr. Burns works with the NOAA Office of National Marine Sanctuaries (ONMS) to understand human use patterns of visitors and residents to federal marine sanctuaries. His research supports current efforts to mitigate coral reef degradation in the Florida Keys, to understand human issues associated with veterans and the PACT Act (impact of burn pits on military members), understanding the perceptions of mid-Atlantic landowners who may desire to plant biomass plants for energy production, and visitor monitoring in the national forests of Oregon, Washington, and Montana. Burns was the Primary Investigator of a U.S. Agency for International Development and USFS—International Programs research program from 2012-2017. This interdisciplinary effort was designed to connect Brazilian citizens to their public lands, replicating and extending the ongoing work with the USFS in the U.S.