Burke began her career at the Smithsonian Institution in 2000 as Under Secretary for American Museums and National Programs, then rose through the ranks to become Deputy Secretary and Chief Operating Officer in 2004, a post she held until September 2007.
With 19 museums and galleries, the National Zoological Park, and nine research centers, the Smithsonian Institution is the world's biggest museum and research complex. It employs about 6,000 people, including 500 scientists, and welcomes over 23 million visitors each year.
As Deputy Secretary, Burke was in charge of the Smithsonian's entire financial and administrative operations, including facilities and engineering, human resources, information technology, communications, and government relations, as well as the policies, objectives, and staffing of ten of the institution's museums, centers, and offices, including the National Museum of American History, the National Museum of Natural History, and the National Museum of African-American History.
She also aided with the management of the Smithsonian's 35 Museum and other Advisory Boards, as well as significant donor connections, and worked with the Board of Regents, the institution's governing body. She was Executive Dean and lecturer in public policy at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government from 1996 to 2000.
Degree Programs, Executive Education, Financial Services, Information Services, Human Resources, Communications, and Facilities and Services are all managed and overseen by the Executive Dean, who also serves as the School's Chief Operating Officer. She also taught health and government policy seminars at the undergraduate, graduate, and executive levels.
Senator Bob Dole's Chief of Staff from 1986 to 1996, when he was Senate Minority Leader and later Majority Leader, was Burke. She was elected Secretary of the Senate, the Senate's top administrative official, in 1995.
She began her career as a member of the Senate Finance Committee's staff in 1978, where she was in charge of legislation pertaining to Medicare, Medicaid, and other healthcare programs. Burke became the Committee's Deputy Staff Director in 1982 and the Senate Majority Leader's Deputy Chief of Staff in 1985.
Burke was a member of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission from 2000 to 2007, as well as a member of the Kaiser Family Foundation's Board of Trustees from 1999 to 2008, where he served as Chair of the Board from 2005 to 2008.
Burke is a member of the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, the Board of Visitors of Georgetown University's School of Nursing and Health Studies, the Board of the Association of American Medical Colleges, and the Council of the Institute of Medicine.
In 2004, she was elected to the National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine and the National Academy of Public Administration. Burke, a San Francisco native, now lives in the Washington, D.C. region.
She graduated from Harvard University with a master's degree in public administration in 1982 and a bachelor's degree in nursing from the University of San Francisco in 1973. In 1999, she received an Honorary Doctorate of Military Medicine from the University of the Uniformed Health Services, and in 2005, she received an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Marymount University.
She began her profession as a staff nurse in Berkeley, California.
