Nick Seaver
Vice President and Co-Director, Training Programs
Since joining Burness in 2007, Nick has worked both domestically and internationally on issues including climate change, health policy, public health, biomedical research and global health. He works with and advises organizations that include the Medical Society Consortium on Climate & Health, The Mayday Fund, the Aspen Institute’s New Voices Fellowship, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences at the National Institutes of Health.
As co-director of Burness’ training programs, Nick develops and leads workshops and training sessions for diverse organizations like Duke University, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative, The Commonwealth Fund, the Ford Foundation, the National Institutes of Health and a wide range of nonprofits. These sessions cover a range of communications skills, including message development, media relations, social media use and persuasive writing, among other topics.
Nick is a 2007 graduate of the George Washington University’s School of Media and Public Affairs and University Honors Program with a Bachelor of Arts in political communication.
Personal Cause
I’m passionate about ensuring that LGBT people have equal rights and that LGBT young people feel accepted and supported. Since 2010, I’ve volunteered with The Trevor Project – a nonprofit providing crisis intervention and suicide prevention for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning (LGBTQ) young people – and served as the Co-Chair of the Washington, DC volunteer committee.
Hobbies
In an eternal quest to be a renaissance man, I can be found practicing and performing improv around DC, biking, or throwing pottery after work. I also love good movies and television.
Favorite Quote
"When you teach a man to hate and fear his brother, when you teach that he is a lesser man because of his color or his beliefs or the policies he pursues, when you teach that those who differ from you threaten your freedom or your job or your family, then you also learn to confront others not as fellow citizens but as enemies – to be met not with cooperation but with conquest, to be subjugated and mastered...We must admit the vanity of our false distinctions among men and learn to find our own advancement in the search for the advancement of all. We must admit in ourselves that our own children's future cannot be built on the misfortunes of others. We must recognize that this short life can neither be ennobled or enriched by hatred or revenge." -Robert F. Kennedy