Lawrence Burns Appointed To NTID Advisory Group

Lawrence D. Burns has been appointed to the National Advisory Group for the National Technical Institute for the Deaf, a college of Rochester Institute of Technology. Burns is vice president of General Motors for Research & Development and Strategic Planning.

Comprised of professionals concerned with education and technical training for deaf and hard-of-hearing students at the postsecondary level, the National Advisory Group advises NTID administrators on strategic planning, development, employment, marketing and other relevant issues.

"While I have been active in promoting deafness research since I lost my hearing and received a cochlear implant 12 years ago, being involved with NTID gives me an opportunity to directly interact with and help deaf and hard-of-hearing students,” said Burns. “As a scientist, the role NTID plays in providing technical career opportunities for these students is especially important to me.”

Burns was recognized in 2002 by the Deafness Research Foundation with its National Campaign for Hearing Health Leadership Award. He serves on the board of the University of Michigan Center for Hearing Disorders. He is also active in a joint fundraising effort by General Motors and the United Auto Workers union that supports noise-induced hearing loss research at U-M’s Kresge Hearing Research Institute.

Burns, who is quoted frequently in national media about the future of the automotive industry and alternatives to gasoline-powered vehicles, is championing GM’s reinvention of the automobile around advance propulsion, electronics, telematics, and materials technologies.

He serves on the University of Michigan’s College of Engineering National Advisory Council and its Automotive Research Center Board. In addition, he is a member of the Advisory Council for the University of California Berkeley’s Institute of Transportation Studies, and has recently completed a two-year term as National Honorary Chairman for MATHCOUNTS.

In April 2005, Burns was a member of a General Motors team awarded the Franz Edelman Award from the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences. He also received the 2005 Alumni Merit Award from the University of Michigan Industrial and Operations Engineering Department.

Burns holds a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from the University of California at Berkeley. He also holds a master’s degree in engineering/public policy from the University of Michigan and a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from General Motors Institute (now Kettering University).

NTID is the first and largest technological college in the world for deaf and hard-of-hearing students. NTID, one of eight colleges of RIT, offers educational programs and access and support services to its 1,100 students from around the world who study, live, and socialize with 14,400 hearing students on RIT’s Rochester, N.Y., campus.

Web address: http://www.rit.edu/NTID.

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