Nyron Shane Burke, a Jamaican student at Princeton University in the United States. - Contributed TWENTY-TWO-year-old Nyron Shane Burke, a Jamaican studying at Princeton University in the United States, will give this year's Buxton Thompson Memorial Lecture.
It is set for King's House on February 2, starting at 5 p.m., with Robert Gregory, head of the HEART Trust/NTA, as moderator. The function is sponsored by Capital and Credit Merchant Bank. This is the second in the series of Buxton Thompson Lectures, the first having been delivered last year at King's House by educator Dr. Ralph Thompson.
Burke left Santa Cruz, St. Elizabeth, at age five to join his parents in the United States. A dozen years later, at age 17, he became an elected member of the Prince George's County Board of Education, where he represented nearly 140,000 students attending a score of schools in the metropolitan Washington, D.C. area.
AN ALTRUISTIC, INTUITIVE
Described as "an altruistic, intuitive, dedicated, innovative, intelligent young man, with a drive to succeed and a passion for helping others", Burke got into the prestigious Princeton by his impressive academic performance, his skills at representing students' interests and an award of US$80,000 as winner of the Project Excellence Scholarship for black high school students.
Burke was selected for the Woodrow Wilson School's Van de Velde Award for a policy paper on 'U.S. Policy in the Greek-Turkey-Cyprus region'. He was also chosen to analyse and identify areas for reform in the U.S. Intelligence Community under the guidance of former CIA Inspector-General, Frederick Hitz.
Since joining the student body at Princeton, Burke has represented United States' universities in a number of internationally televised video-conferences with European university students, debating international affairs.
Of his own academic success, Burke said: "What made me strong on the SAT was not so much the preparation, but the kind of habits that I developed as a student in general."
