Dr. Burgess is a Professor and Director of the Firefighter Health Collaborative Research Program at the University of Arizona Zuckerman College of Public Health. He received his MD from the University of Washington in 1988, an MS in Toxicology with a Concentration in Industrial Hygiene from the University of Arizona in 1993 and an MPH in Environmental Health from the University of Washington in 1996. He previously worked as an Emergency Medicine physician, Medical Toxicologist and Occupational and Environmental Medicine physician. He has worked on research with firefighters for over 30 years, focused on cancer risk and prevention since 2015. Dr. Burgess is also Director of the national multicenter Fire Fighter Cancer Cohort Study (FFCCS), funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and other organizations.