This Week’s Program:

Chris Burke, Executive Director of Community Development at Georgia Tech

Christopher Burke is an educator, strategist, and public relations professional with more than 25 years of experience in education, urban planning, and community development.  Chris began his professional career as a housing coordinator for The Atlanta Project, a nonprofit organization founded by former President Jimmy Carter, which focuses on improving living conditions in some of Atlanta’s most deprived neighborhoods.  It was this experience that sparked Chris’s interest in understanding the impact of housing policies on equity and quality of life.  

Chris continued his career, joining the research staff at the American Planning Association (APA), where he was a contributing writer for APA Publications, including Zoning News, PAS Memo, and Planning Magazine.  While at APA, Chris’s research focused on zoning as an economic development tool to improve quality of life indicators such as access to food, transportation, and employment opportunities.  In 1999, Chris joined the Greater Atlanta Home Builders Association as a Government Affairs Representative and in the fall of 2003 was appointed Vice President of Government Affairs, where he remained until November 2010. 

In April 2011, Chris joined the Georgia Tech Office of Government and Community Relations as Director of Community Relations, and in 2019 became the Executive Director of Community Relations. In this position, Chris works with local government, educators, religious, business, and civic leaders to ensure that Tech plays an integral part in enriching the metro-Atlanta region, particularly the communities closest to campus.  He also teaches an undergraduate sociology course in the Georgia Tech Honors Program that explores the challenges prevalent for low-income students in Atlanta Public Schools and the transformative impact of mentoring.  As part of Georgia Tech's 10-year Strategic Plan, Chris was selected to co-lead development of an anchor institution strategy to guide the Institute’s community engagement efforts over the next decade. 

Chris is a 2014 graduate of the Regional Leadership Institute and 2019 graduate of Leadership Atlanta, a 2021 Anchor Institution Task Force Fellow, and a 2023 Fulbright-Germany scholar.  He holds a BA in Sociology and an MPA in Urban Administration from Clark-Atlanta University.