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 (CHASS) 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 (subject of sessions at the Southern Historical Association and the Social Science History Association’s annual meetings; submitted for Pulitzer) and The Age of Lincoln (winner of the 2007 Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize for non-fiction).

Burton was born in Royston, Georgia and grew up in Ninety Six, South Carolina. He did his undergraduate studies at Furman University (B.A., 1964) and received his Ph.D. in 1974 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 (presented by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education). 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.