Board of Directors
Sheila Burke
Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy at Harvard University and Research Professor and Distinguished Visitor at Georgetown University
Sheila Burke, MPA, RN, FAAN is a Faculty Research Fellow at the Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy and a member of the faculty at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Ms. Burke is also a Research Professor at Georgetown University’s Public Policy Institute and a Distinguished Visitor at the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law, Georgetown University Law Center. Ms. Burke worked for the Smithsonian Institution from 2000-2007, first as the Under Secretary for American Museums and National Programs and then in 2004 as the Deputy Secretary and Chief Operating Officer, a position in which she served until October 2007. From 1996 to 2000, she was Executive Dean and lecturer in public policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, where she taught classes on health and government policy in the undergraduate, graduate and executive education programs. Ms. Burke was Chief of Staff to Senator Bob Dole, from 1986 to 1996, when he was Senate Minority and then the Majority Leader. In 1995, she was elected as Secretary of the U.S. Senate. Starting as a member of the staff of the Senate Finance Committee in 1978 she was responsible for legislation relating to Medicare, Medicaid and other health programs. Ms. Burke became Deputy Staff Director of the Committee in 1982 and Deputy Chief of Staff to the Senate Majority Leader in 1985.
Ms. Burke was elected to the National Academy of Public Administration and to the Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Science. She chaired in 2005-06, the IOM’s Committee on the Assessment of the US Drug Safety System. Ms. Burke also served as a member of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission from 2000 to 2007. From 1999-2005 she was a member of the Board of Directors of The American Board of Internal Medicine Foundation. Ms. Burke currently serves as Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Kaiser Family Foundation, Palo Alto, California. She also serves on the boards of The Chubb Corporation and WellPoint Inc. and is a member of the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured.
The Partnership for Public Service works to revitalize our federal government by inspiring a new generation to serve and by transforming the way government works.
