Beverly Burris grew up mostly in Houston, Texas but left at the age of 19, seeking political asylum in the Northeast. She received a Ph.D. in Sociology from New York University in 1982, and came to Albuquerque in 1986 to take a job in the Sociology Department of UNM, where she taught for over 25 years, retiring in 2012. In addition to writing scholarly books and articles during the past 30 years, she has occasionally published some journalism on selected topics. Now that she is retired, she plans to write more journalism about issues that concern her: climate change, the fact that our health care system is by far the most expensive but least effective system in the industrialized world (and why), the demise of the Democratic Party as a force for progressive change and the political implications of this, etc. She lives in the SE Heights with her husband Pete, a retired social worker and artist.