LAKE FOREST, IL — Lake Forest Police Chief John Burke has been named the 2026 recipient of the Harm Awareness Award, the board and leadership of the GPF Foundation announced Wednesday.
The annual award is presented to an individual or institution that has demonstrated a significant commitment to saving lives through awareness by reducing the harm caused by recreational drugs.
Burke will officially receive the award from Michael Sosulski, Ph.D., president of Lake Forest College and the 2025 award recipient, at the Ninth Annual Event of the GPF Foundation on Oct. 1 at Northmoor Country Club.
The Harm Awareness Award recognizes leaders working at the intersection of public safety, medical science and community education. In announcing Burke's selection, the foundation placed him in a group of past recipients that includes law, medicine, higher education and public health institutions.
The 2020 recipient was The Honorable Michael G. Nerheim, who was honored for establishing "A Way Out," a national model for referring individuals with substance-related incidents to medical services rather than the criminal justice system. In 2021, the award went to Dr. Jerrold B. Leikin for his four decades of work in preventative medicine, medical toxicology and public health education.
Rosalind Franklin University received the 2022 award for a partnership involving medical simulation tools that have trained more than 200,000 medical personnel worldwide, along with an ongoing fellowship program with the foundation. In 2023, Dr. Ben Feinzimer and Emily Mysel were recognized for launching a training program for first responders in Glencoe to help police and paramedics recognize symptoms of adulterated drug ingestion.
The 2024 recipient was the Lake County Department of Health, which the foundation credited with training health department professionals across Northern Illinois in strategies to mitigate substance-related tragedies. Lake Forest College received the 2025 award for what the foundation described as a model partnership in education and research, including more than 30 student interns to the foundation over five years and work to co-develop harm-awareness curriculum.
The GPF Foundation was established in 2018 in honor of Gregory Paul Friedman. Its work supports education, appropriate treatment and awareness of dangers related to recreational drugs, with a focus on peer-to-peer outreach about psychostimulant risks and clinical training tools for front-line medical providers.
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