Burke Center Moves from Northland College Under New Name

ASHLAND, Wis. — After the closure of Northland College, the Mary Griggs Burke Center for Freshwater Innovation found a new home under a new identity.

The Mary Griggs Burke Center for Freshwater Innovation has now transformed into the Burke Center for Ecosystem Research. The non-profit research facility has expanded to allow non-water research, allowing some Northland faculty to join the new center.

They’re also looking to continue their summer research internship programs with small groups of students. The groups of students will be looking at restoration work along Fish Creek and studying the reasons for the recent increase of blue-green algae.

“We had a whole range of projects that we work on, and then we get students involved directly doing the work of those projects, gathering the water samples, analyzing them in the lab, and then writing reports and presenting the results that we find, and just a really great applied learning opportunities,” said Matt Hudson, an associate director of Great Lakes. “So we’re able to continue that program, that summer research program, for summer of 2025 and so we have six students that will be working with us full time this summer.”

The center has no affiliation to the now closed college and has moved to the Ashland Area Development Corporation complex.

The Burke Center is currently working on collaborations with other high educations institutions to find students interested in future summer internship.