Stories of Change

Please join us in celebrating the establishment of the Penny S. Burke Endowed Chair in Behavioral Neurology, supported by a $2 million dollar gift from Timothy Burke in honor of his beloved, late wife. 

When patients are faced with memory issues or a chronic neurologic disease, they often require a neurology subspecialty called behavioral neurology. There are approximately 150 behavioral neurologists in the U.S., seven of whom practice on the CU Anschutz campus. The world-class specialists at the University of Colorado’s Alzheimer’s and Cognition Center provide a lifeline to patients seeking memory care and make a direct impact through accurate diagnoses and the latest treatments. 

The benefactor’s passion for memory disorders advocacy helped inspire this generous gift. It is Timothy’s expressed desire that funds be used to support a faculty chair in the Memory Disorders Clinic at the Anschutz Medical Campus, specifically focusing on behavioral neurology. The inaugural chairholder will be Samantha Holden, MD, MS, FAAN, associate professor and vice chair of Outpatient Neurology Services. As a cognitive and movement disorders neurologist, Dr. Holden evaluates and manages patients with conditions that affect cognition, behavior and movement, including dementia with Lewy bodies and Parkinson's disease dementia. Her close relationship with the Burke family makes the establishment of this endowed chair even more meaningful; Timothy wished to establish an endowed chair to create an enduring legacy of his wife Penny’s name while honoring Dr. Holden’s exceptional contributions to memory disorder research and education.  

The establishment of the Penny S. Burke Endowed Chair in Behavioral Neurology would not have been possible without the generosity of Timothy Burke and the collaboration of Ellen Goldberg, Marti Laule and Jamie Mager in the Office of Advancement.