Mary Cornelia Burke Washington (formerly Mary Burke Nicholas; July 6, 1926 – November 30, 2014) was an American economist, former New York state official, and advocate for women and minorities in public life.

She held a variety of positions in federal, state, and city government in New York throughout the 1970s and 1980s.

[2] Her father, Walter Burke, who also had a law degree from Howard University School of Law, had moved the family from Washington D.C. to Tuskegee during the 1920s to help establish Tuskegee Home, one of the United States' first Veterans Administration hospitals for African-American military veterans.

[2] Burke then received her bachelor's degree in economics from the University of Wisconsin in 1948.

[2] She was appointed the first director of New York State Women's Division by Governor Hugh Carey in 1975.