She was a professor of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry at University of California, Irvine.
[1] Burgess was born and raised in Cleveland and attended public school throughout her childhood.
Her doctoral thesis concerned nitrogen fixation and the mechanisms involved in each reaction.
[1] After a brief stint at the Kettering Research Lab in Yellow Springs, Ohio, Burgess moved to the University of California, Irvine to continue her work with Azotobacter metalloenzymes and nitrogenase.
She was recognized by her peers as a leader in nitrogen fixation and served as Chair of the NIH Study Section on Metallobiochemistry and Chair of the 2001 Gordon Conference on Metals in Biology.