Heather Fairburn has not wasted time reaching milestones in her career since graduating from UCCS in 2018. A Florida native from a military-affiliated family, she transferred to UCCS from a college in southern Georgia. She entered the Criminal Justice program at UCCS and quickly realized there are many paths that the major can take people down, even beyond working in some of the more traditional law enforcement roles. She was even chosen as student of the year for the Criminal Justice program her senior year. After she completed her degree at UCCS, she went on to work with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement in a Fusion Center. Fusion Centers are intended to improve sharing of criminal activity information among varying law enforcement agencies because of the Patriot Act. She was then promoted to Strategic Intelligence Analyst while in Florida. Now, after relocating to Virginia in 2022, she is working as a Criminal Intelligence Analyst.
Being a first-generation, non-traditional, and transfer student in college made the transition to a new university challenging, but Fairburn worked hard and quickly started to excel in the classroom. When she first started the Criminal Justice Research Methods course with Sherry Marshall, she said she struggled to see how it could ever fit into her life outside of the classroom. The math aspect of the course challenged her greatly, but in her second semester of the one-year course, Professor Marshall asked her to come and help some fellow students with the course because she was doing so well. Hindsight truly is 20/20, as Fairburn now shares that she uses principles and concepts from that course in her professional work frequently.
One of Fairburn's first tastes of volunteering at UCCS came when she responded to the call for help to write letters to incoming students in summer 2020 via the Write a Mountain Lion program. Her love for UCCS inspired her to get involved as a volunteer despite living thousands of miles from campus. She has also helped read and score student scholarship applications with the Chancellor's Leadership Class. When asked what advice she would give to others who are considering volunteering with UCCS she said, "I enjoy volunteering because I know it has a purpose, even if I don't always see it on the forefront. If you enjoy volunteering, give a look around (the website) to see what is being offered and interests you, because you can sort by looking at your interests and know that you are making a difference, even if you do not always see it."
Fairburn has no shortage of interests and hobbies outside of her work. She enjoys volunteering, traveling, camping, hiking, gardening, sports, attending concerts, and spending time with her husband and their two dogs.
