Burney retired from Indiana University in 2020. Prior to being recruited to IU by Elinor Ostrom he was the Indiana State Forester and Director of the Indiana DNR’s Division of Forestry from 1990-2005. Previously he was a professor of forestry at both Purdue University and University of Massachusetts – Amherst.
He is on Advisory Boards for the Sycamore Land Trust and CanopyBloomington, and active on the Northern Waters Land Trust’s Conservation (Land Acquisition) Committee for the Upper Mississippi River watershed in north central Minnesota. He earned BSF, MSF and PhD degrees from Purdue University. Wife Barbara and he spend their summers (May-early October) at their cabin on Big Mantrap Lake, near Bemidji, MN. Burney is an active angler. They spend the rest of the year in Bloomington where Burney is still active at the Ostrom Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis and the O’Neill School.
