Sheila P. Burke, currently the Executive Dean and a Lecturer in Public Policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, most recently served as the Chief of Staff to former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole from 1986-1996. She was also elected to serve as Secretary of the Senate in 1995. Ms. Burke served as Deputy Chief of Staff to the Senate Majority Leader from 1985-1986, as Deputy Staff Director of the Senate Committee on Finance from 1982-1985, and was a professional staff member of the committee from 1979-1982.

She now serves on the adjunct faculty of the Georgetown University School of Nursing. From 1980-1981, Ms. Burke was a research assistant at the Center for Health Policy and Management (now the Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy) at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in Cambridge.

Ms. Burke currently serves as a member of the Board of Trustees of Marymount University and the University of San Francisco. She is a Member, Board of the Institute of Medicine's Committee on Immunization Finance Policies and Practices, Washington, D.C.; Member, Board of the Center for Health Care Strategies, Inc., Princeton, New Jersey; Member, National Advisory Committee for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Covering Kids: A National Health Access Program for Low-Income, Uninsured Children, Washington, D.C.; Member, Board on Children, Youth, and Families, National Research Council and the Institute of Medicine, Washington, D.C.; Member, Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, Washington, D.C.; Member, Study Panel on Restructuring Medicare for the Long Term, National Academy of Social Insurance, Washington, D.C.; Member of the National Advisory Council, Center for State Health Policy; and Member, Board of Trustees, The Picker Institute, Boston, Massachusetts. She also serves on a number of corporate boards, including the Chubb Corporation and Wellpoint Health Networks.

Ms. Burke, who is a native of San Francisco, California, earned a Master of Public Administration from Harvard University and a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from the University of San Francisco.

Early in her career she worked as a staff nurse in Berkeley, California, and was Director of Program and Field Services for the National Student Nurses Association in New York.

Ms. Burke is married and has three children.