Former Executive Director of Harm Reduction International and social justice advocate. Born on Nov 14, 1980, in Edmonton, AB, Canada, she died from cancer in Geneva, Switzerland, on May 20, 2025, aged 44 years.
Naomi Burke-Shyne was a fervent defender of a human rights approach to health who championed and partnered with marginalised people globally to advance social, racial, and economic justice. She did so with energy, enthusiasm, wit, and fierce intelligence. As Senior Program Officer in Health Law and Equality for Open Society Foundations’ Public Health Program, she developed expertise in health and rights in the context of palliative care, drug policy, and harm reduction. Later, in her role as deputy and then Executive Director of Harm Reduction International (HRI), she set a benchmark for inclusive and values-driven leadership. “Under her direction, HRI was not only a leading voice for harm reduction programmes but also a convener of dialogue that challenged racism, colonialism, and harmful power dynamics”, said Catherine Cook, Acting Executive Director of HRI.
When she died, Burke-Shyne was a Visiting Fellow of the Geneva Graduate Institute’s Global Health Centre, Geneva, Switzerland, where Michel Kazatchkine, former Executive Director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, is now Senior Fellow. Kazatchkine described her as “a passionate and committed advocate and an outstanding director of HRI, positioning the organisation as the leader and reference on harm reduction in the global health galaxy”.
Burke-Shyne was born to Irish parents in Edmonton, AB, Canada, who moved their young family to Papua New Guinea, New Zealand, and also to Alice Springs, Sydney, and Brisbane in Australia. This love of travel was instilled in Burke-Shyne who, at the time of her death, had Irish, Canadian, and Australian citizenships and lived in Geneva. Her husband, Matt Gordon, said: “She was intensely nomadic, the daughter of intensively nomadic parents.” She overcame serious health challenges to graduate in law from the University of Queensland in 2003. She initially worked as a corporate lawyer, while studying for a master’s in international and community development (2008) at Deakin University. In 2009 she took a 6-month sabbatical in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, with an International Development Law Organization and UN Development Programme joint project. This experience cemented her desire to use her skills for a more compassionate purpose, and she left her position with global firm Baker McKenzie soon afterwards.
As Project Manager for the HIV and Health Law Initiative in Jakarta, Indonesia and Kathmandu, Nepal, she developed and implemented capacity building workshops on HIV and human rights, training more than 200 lawyers and government representatives. In 2010 she met Gordon in Kathmandu when he was working for the UK’s Department for International Development. They married 4 years later in South Africa. Gordon, now Manager of Health Financing Strategy at the Global Fund, said: “She was extremely funny. It didn’t take me long to fall in love with her, but I soon learned that her real superpower was her empathy and compassion.” Burke-Shyne went on to work with LGBTQ+ communities to engage National Human Rights Commissions on inclusion, non-discrimination, and the right to health in seven countries in Asia, then spent a year in Kampala, Uganda, designing programmes and developing grant applications on the rule of law, labour rights, and women’s rights. She worked in a senior role with Open Society Foundations, first in New York, then London, before joining HRI in 2017.
As HRI’s Executive Director she made the UK-headquartered organisation more diverse, including more voices from the Global South, with staff from Nigeria and India, and nurtured the team, bringing on a resilience coach to support staff wellbeing. “Her legacy lives on not only in the work advanced during her tenure, but also in the people she mentored and the organisational foundation she strengthened”, Cook said. In 2024 Burke-Shyne decided to step down from HRI, to seek a new challenge with a wider harm reduction remit. She is survived by her husband Matt, mother Philomena, father Bernard, and her two younger siblings Suailce and Duncan. Niamh Eastwood, Executive Director for NGO Release, which shared offices with HRI, said, “Naomi grounded her work in compassion and evidence, while using her infectious optimism to inspire those around her to be as equally relentless in their pursuit for a more equitable world. Despite the heaviness of the work—whether in the halls of the UN or streets of Jakarta—she carried it with grace and a warmth and humour that would light up any room.”
