William J. Burke, M.D. is the A. O. Stake Professor and Vice-Chair for Research of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, Nebraska. He also is the Director of the Psychopharmacology Research Consortium at UNMC.

Dr. Burke received his medical degree from the University of Nebraska where he also completed an internship in Internal Medicine. He performed his residency in Psychiatry at Washington University Medical School in St. Louis. He received additional post-graduate training at the Alzheimer Disease Research Center at Washington University while also studying psychiatric epidemiology.

          Dr. Burke has extensive experience in clinical trials and his research interests include evaluation of potential new treatments for Alzheimer disease, and depression, and exploring the relationship between depression and immune function. His current NIH-funded research is testing whether depression can be prevented in patients being treated for cancer of the head and neck.