Christopher BurkeDirector of Community Relations, Georgia Institute for Technology
Secretary, Lab Atlanta 2.0
Christopher Burke is an educator, strategist, and public relations professional with more than twenty-years of experience in education, urban planning, and community development. Chris began his professional career working as a housing coordinator for The Atlanta Project, a non-profit created by former President Jimmy Carter focused on improving living conditions in Atlanta’s most impoverished neighborhoods. It was this experienced that spurred Chris’s interest in understanding the impact housing policies have 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 centered 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. In this position Chris works with local government, educators, religious, business, and civic leaders to assure that Tech plays an integral part enriching the metro-Atlanta region, particularly the communities closest to campus. He also teaches an undergraduate sociology course in the Georgia Tech Honor’s Program that explores education policy and the challenges prevalent for low-income black students. Chris is an avid music collector and lover of his Fender Jazz Bass guitar. He lives in Duluth with his wife, two of his four children, and energetic Wheaten Terrier. Chris holds a BA in Sociology and MPA in Urban Administration from Clark-Atlanta University.