She received a surprising boost from a new fan when, during his first White House interview after taking office, President Bill Clinton said he was reading Goodnight, Irene.
Burke became active in raising awareness of the problems facing crime labs and the need to obtain better funding for forensic science, at one point founding a nonprofit to do so.
She has also been an advocate for the improvement of medicolegal death investigation in the U.S. and for requiring the reporting of unidentified remains to NamUs.
Burke has been the Guest of Honor at several mystery fan conventions, including Malice Domestic, Left Coast Crime, and Mayhem in the Midwest.
[citation needed] Burke's novel Bloodlines appears in the television series Bones: Season 1, Ep.