Andy Burness is an instructor in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, where he teaches the course “Practical Communication Strategies and Tactics for Influencing a Healthier World.”
Burness is also founder and president of Burness, a mission-driven global communications firm supporting nonprofits and the people they serve. The company has partnered with more than 600 nonprofit and governmental organizations over its more than 35 years.
Burness and his colleagues showcase solutions to the problems that cause poverty, hunger, disease and environmental degradation, often taking little-known ideas that can benefit humanity and developing communications strategies and tactics for taking these ideas to scale. The team’s unwavering mission is to help extraordinary people share their research and tell their stories for the good of the world.
In addition to his role at Harvard, Burness is currently on the faculty of The George Washington University’s School of Media and Public Affairs. He has also been an Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
Before starting his firm, he was liaison with the public and primary spokesperson for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the largest health philanthropy in the United States. Prior to that, he served as public information officer for the President’s Commission on Medical Ethics. He was also a legislative assistant for health and education policy in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Burness has a Bachelor of Arts Degree from Duke University and a Masters in Business Administration from the University of Maryland.
