SALEM, OR — The Oregon Senate recently confirmed Marcilynn A. Burke to the five-member Oregon Transportation Commission. The commission is the state’s transportation governing body, guiding statewide policy and strategic direction to improve and maintain Oregon’s comprehensive multimodal transportation network. Burke will succeed Maurice Henderson, who stepped down from the commission to join U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s office as a Senior Advisor.

Burke is currently Dean and Dave Frohnmayer Chair in Leadership and Law at the University of Oregon School of Law. Burke served in the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management as Deputy Director for Programs and Policy. She then served as the Acting Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management for the U.S. Department of the Interior over the BLM and three other bureaus, following a 2011 appointment by President Barack Obama.

“I am delighted to welcome Marcilynn Burke to the Commission,” said Robert Van Brocklin, who chairs the commission. “Her experience, intellect, and leadership abilities will be a tremendous asset to our work."

Burke holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a law degree from Yale Law School, where she was an Editor for both the Yale Journal of Law and Feminism, and the Yale Journal of International Law.