Guy and Heidi Burgess both earned their Ph.D.s in sociology from the University of Colorado in 1979. They then did postdoctoral work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and worked for several years as public policy conflict consultants. In 1988, with support from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, they established (with others) the University of Colorado Conflict Research Consortium (now Conflict Information Consortium), which they have co-directed ever since.
