Vernon Burton

Who is Vernon Burton?

Orville Vernon Burton is a professor of history at Clemson University and Director of the Clemson CyberInstitute. He was formerly Director of the Institute for Computing in Humanities, Arts, and Social Science and professor of History and Sociology at the University of Illinois He is also a Senior Research Scientist at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, where he is Associate Director for Humanities and Social Sciences. Burton is the author of more than a hundred articles and the author or editor of fourteen books, including In My Father's House Are Many Mansions: Family and Community in Edgefield, South Carolina and The Age of Lincoln.

Burton was born in Royston, Georgia and grew up in Ninety Six, South Carolina. He did his undergraduate studies at Furman University and received his Ph.D. in American History from Princeton University.

Recognized for his teaching, Burton was selected nationwide as the 1999 U.S. Research and Doctoral University Professor of the Year. He received the American Historical Association’s Eugene Asher Distinguished Teacher Award for 2003. Within the University of Illinois, Burton has won teaching awards at the department, school, college, and campus levels and received the 2006 Campus Award for Excellence in Public Engagement from the University of Illinois.