The Nerken Professorship is designed to recognize and encourage outstanding teaching, research and leadership in the field of engineering sciences. In the nearly 20 years that Dr. Burghardt has served on the Hofstra faculty, he has established an extremely compelling record of achievement as a teacher, scholar and member of the University community.
In addition to his accomplishments in the classroom, Dr. Burghardt has compiled an impressive record as a researcher, scholar and author. He had received funding for several multi-million dollar grants from the National Science Foundation for projects that link together technology education and the study of science and mathematics. Dr. Burghardt is the author of numerous articles and of six textbooks on engineering, one of which, "Engineering Thermodynamics," is in its fourth edition. A new textbook, "Technology Education--Learning by Design", was recently published by Prentice-Hall this year.
Dr. Burghardt has also been very active as a member of the Hofstra faculty and a community leader. He served as Hofstra's Chair of the Engineering Department from 1983 to 1992. Since 1989 he has been the Director of the Center for Technological Literacy at Hofstra.
In the community, Dr. Burghardt was the Trustee and Commissioner of Public Works for the Village of Kensington from 1989 to 1990 and was the Mayor of the Village of Kensington from 1990 to 2000.
