Research Interests
Dr. Burnham is currently involved in research on climbing plants of the Amazon Basin, especially in Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia on the lower flanks of the Andes Mountains. Her interests are in the community structure and species composition of Amazonian forests, as viewed via the lianas and vines that inhabit these forests. Particular interest has recently been focused on the impacts of human intervention in Amazonian forests from oil exploration, agriculture and gold mining. Continuing work on the paleontological history of the forests of Northern South America is carried out in her lab as well, with on-going research in the intermontane basins of Ecuador and the eastern basins of Bolivia.

Academic Background
Dr. Burnham received her Ph.D. in Botany at the University of Washington in 1987. Her dissertation was on "Inferring vegetation from plant-fossil assemblages: effects of depositional environment and heterogeneity in the source vegetation on assemblages from modern and ancient fluvial-deltaic environments". Research was carried out in southern Mexico (Tabasco) and in the state of Washington in coal mines of the Puget Group. Her Masters Degree was also received from the University of Washington in 1983 on Foliar Morphological Analysis of the Ulmoideae (Ulmaceae) from the early Tertiary of western North America. She received her Bachelor's Degree from the University of California, Berkeley in 1980.

Graduate Students
Paul Foster,  Sandra Yap, Jose Cabrera

Burnham, R.J. and Carranco, N.L. 2004. Miocene winged fruits of Loxopterygium (Anacardiaceae) from the Ecuadorian Andes. American Journal of Botany 91(11): 1767-1773.

Burnham, R.J. and Johnson K.R. 2004. South American paleobotany and the origins of neotropical rainforests. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, series B. on line October 2004.

Burnham, R.J. 2004. Alpha and Beta Diversity of Lianas in Yasuní National Park, Ecuador. Forest Ecology and Management 190:43-55.

Burnham, R.J. 2002. Dominance, diversity and distribution of lianas in Yasuní, Ecuador: who is on top? Journal of Tropical Ecology 18:845-864.

Burnham, R.J. 2002. Climbers of Yasuní National Park, Ecuador and their importance in tropical forests. Memorias del Tercer Congreso Botanico del Ecuador. Editores; A. Freire-Fiero y D. Neill. Pp.181-210.

Burnham, R.J. 2001. Is Conservation Biology a Paleontological Pursuit? Palaios 16(5):423-424.

Burnham, R.J., N. C. A. Pitman, K. R. Johnson and P. Wilf. 2001. Habitat-related error in estimating temperatures from leaf margins in a humid tropical forest. American Journal of Botany, 88(6): 1096-1102.

Burnham, R.J. and A. Graham 1999. The History of Neotropical vegetation: new developments and status. Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden 86:546-589.

Mirle, C. and Burnham, R.J. 1999. A Key to Asymmetrically Winged Fruits from the Western Hemisphere. Brittonia 51:1-14.

Burnham, R.J. 1997. Stand characteristics and leaf litter species composition of a dry forest hectare in Santa Rosa National Park, Costa Rica. Biotropica 29(4): 384-395.