Jonah Burnham

Business major Jonah Burnham chose to attend UMass Lowell for a deeply personal reason: His mother, Nancy, was battling lymphoma, and he wanted to stay close to home in Concord, Massachusetts.

“The idea was that I could go to class and then come home and be there to help out, just be a good son,” he says.

But in January of 2020, midway through his senior year of high school, Burnham lost his mother to the disease.

Now, Burnham needed to be close to home so that he and his older brother, Noah, could comfort their father, Luke.

“It was important to have people around him,” says Burnham, whose world was turned upside down again a few months later by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Determined to start college as planned, Burnham began taking courses remotely that fall in the Manning School of Business.

“It was a challenge,” he says. “The pandemic put a unique strain on everyone, because nobody knows what everybody else is going through.”

While Burnham prefers in-person to virtual learning, he was able to make close connections over Zoom with several faculty members, including Assoc. Teaching Prof. Deb Casey, Asst. Teaching Prof. Elise Magnant and adjunct Kevin Willett.

“It’s been very helpful to have professors that I can just talk about life with,” he says. “That’s the kind of people that UMass Lowell attracts.”

Burnham’s interest in business began at age 14, when he started working as a bagger at a hometown grocery store. By the time he started college, he was working full time as assistant store manager, managing payroll and ordering supplies.

“Business, for me, is depth of knowledge in a specific area, and then breadth of knowledge everywhere else,” says Burnham, who chose concentrations in management and analytics and operations management.

In the summer before his senior year, Burnham got a financial analyst internship at TJX Companies, working on the corporate logistics finance team. One of his initiatives was to increase shipping efficiency by maximizing the merchandise on pallets. By adding an extra 18 inches of height to the pallet loads at 50 stores, Burnham’s team forecast that the company could save $1.8 million annually.

“I was an intern, but I was right there in the action,” says Burnham, whose desk was just outside the office of the senior executive vice president. “Being able to take the textbook knowledge and apply it to the practical world really completes the picture.”

Burnham is continuing for his MBA in the Manning School, where he will serve as president of the Management Society. He is also a member of the Beta Gamma Sigma international business honor society.

“I wouldn’t change my experience at UMass Lowell for anything,” says Burnham, who went from “a nervous and introverted high school student to someone who has the confidence to have a conversation with anyone.”

As Burnham prepares for a traditional graduation ceremony that he missed out on in high school because of the pandemic, he can’t help but feel a sense of pride.

"The person I am today was crafted by my mother, and I know that she would be extremely proud of who I’ve become,” he says. “And I know that I want to continue to live in a way that makes her proud.”