Allan Burns is an applied anthropologist who has carried out research on in Mayan communities of Central America, among American Indian tribes, and with Pacific Islanders. He has collaborated with medical researchers on health disparity research among glaucoma patients, stroke patients, immigrants from Mexico and Central America. He has a long standing interest and research in tobacco use initiation and community based participatory research. He has served on technical committees of the International Organization of Migration, the Pan American Health Organization on indigenous people and infectious diseases, and as a consultant to several Latin American Universities on the implementation of intercultural education. He has led international trips and research projects for students of anthropology, medicine, dentistry, public health, and pharmacy. He serves as an expert witness on human rights cases in U.S. federal courts. He is past president of the Society for Applied Anthropology and has received the Sol Tax Career Award of that society. He has also been awarded four teacher of the year awards from the University of Florida, and five awards for mentoring minority Ph.D. students from the State of Florida. He has held administrative positions as director of Fulbright Programs, Chair of the Department of Anthropology, Senior Associate Dean, and Honors Program Prestigious Scholarships advisor at the University of Florida. He has also been a Fulbright scholar at Copenhagen University, visiting faculty at the Autonomous University of the Yucatan in Mexico, and exchange scholar at the Universidad Complutense in Madrid, Spain. He held the du Pont/Magid Endowed Chair position at the University of Florida where he continues as Professor Emeritus. Burns has taught at Duke Kunshan University since it began in 2014. He teaches medical anthropology in the Global Learning Program and “Culture, Health, and Illness in Global Perspective” in the Masters of Global Health program.