Barnes is the Dorothy Danforth Compton Professor and a professor of practice at UVA’s Miller Center of Public Affairs. She also is a senior fellow at the Karsh Center for Law & Democracy and affiliated faculty member at UVA’s School of Law.
She has spent more than 25 years crafting public policy on a wide range of domestic issues and is co-founder of the domestic strategy firm MB2 Solutions LLC. She formerly was an adviser to President Barack Obama and director of the White House Domestic Policy Council. A lawyer by trade, Barnes also served as chief counsel to the late U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy on the Senate Judiciary Committee and was executive vice president for policy at the Center for American Progress.