More About the Author
Martha Burk is a political psychologist and women's issues expert who is co-founder of the Center for Advancement of Public Policy, a research and policy analysis organization in Washington, D.C. She is currently Director of the Corporate Accountability Project for the National Council of Women's Organizations (NCWO). She also serves as the Money Editor for Ms. Magazine, and she is a syndicated newspaper columnist. She holds a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Texas at Arlington. Her background includes experience as a university research director, management professor, and advisor to political campaigns and organizations. Her latest book Your Money And Your Life: The High Stakes for Women Voters in '08 and Beyond (April 2008) is a Ms. Magazine book selection and New Mexico book award winner for best political book of 2008. She is currently updating the book for the 2012 election cycle.
Dr. Burk has long been active in public debate and political analysis. She has provided briefing papers for presidential candidates, including Bill Bradley, Wesley Clark, Howard Dean, and Bill Richardson, and has worked closely with members of the United States Congress on issues of importance to women. She is currently serving as a Senior Policy Adviser for Women's Issues to Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico. Dr. Burk is producing an election year special series What's At Stake 2012: Issues, the Women's Vote, and You, in partnership with KSFR Public Radio in Santa Fe.
From 2000-2005 Dr. Burk served as Chair of the National Council of Women's Organizations a network of over 200 national women's groups collectively representing ten million women. Dr. Burk led the NCWO effort to open the Augusta National Golf Club to women, and remains at the forefront of the debate on women's progress in Corporate America. She has appeared on a great number of news shows, including The Today Show, ABC World News Tonight, CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, Newsnight with Aaron Brown, Lou Dobbs Moneyline, CNN Financial, Bloomberg News, Wolf Blitzer Reports, CBS This Morning, Brian Williams Show, American Morning with Paula Zahn, UpClose, Crossfire, Fox Morning News, News Hour with Jim Lehrer, News with Connie Chung, Hardball, and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.. In addition she been seen on many sports shows, including HBO Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel, ESPN Outside the Lines, Listen Up! With Charles Barkley. She has been featured on hundreds of talk radio programs.
Dr. Burk has been a regular guest on the PBS public affairs program "Debates, Debates," and a contributor to major newspapers, websites, and print outlets on public policy, including USA Today, The Nation, Knight-Ridder wire services, Scripps Howard news services, Louisville Courier Journal, Los Angeles Daily News, Working Woman, Business Woman, Executive Female, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, TomPaine.com, Alternet, and The Huffington Post.
Print coverage of her work has been extensive, with multiple articles in every major and many minor newspapers and magazines, including extensive coverage in The New York Times. Profiles, some with front page coverage, have appeared in People Magazine, The Washington Post, USA Today, The Dallas Morning News, The Atlanta Journal Constitution, the Chicago Tribune, the Baltimore Sun, Sports Illustrated, The New Yorker, More Magazine and a number of others. Prior to her signing on as Money Editor to the magazine, Martha Burk was named a Woman of the Year by Ms. Magazine in 2003.
Dr. Burk has served on the Commission for Responsive Democracy, the Advisory Committee of Americans for Workplace Fairness, the Sex Equity Caucus of the National Association for the Education of Young Children, and the board of directors of the National Committee on Pay Equity, where she headed the Legislative Task Force. She currently serves as an advisory board member to several other national organizations, including the Ford Foundation and Women for World Peace, a project of the Twenty First Century Foundation.
In addition to extensive work on domestic policy, Dr. Burk has conducted training workshops with women's NGOs internationally in Macedonia and Kuwait, under the sponsorship of USAID, and has conducted training in the U.S. for delegations from Russia, Botswana, Korea, Romania, Bulgaria, and the Middle East. She has recently been a member of official U.S. Delegations to international conferences in Iceland, Lithuania, Estonia, and China.
Institutional consulting clients have included the University of Texas, the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs, the U.S. Department of Education, the National Science Foundation, the Smithsonian Institution, Kansas House of Representatives, Women's International News Gathering Service, National Education Association, Search for Common Ground, the United States Information Agency, and the U.S. Department of State.
Dr. Burk's previous book, Cult of Power: Sex Discrimination in Corporate America and What Can Be Done About It (2005), is published by Scribner.
She resides in Corrales, New Mexico with her husband, Ralph Estes. Her two sons and five grandchildren live in Texas.
