Barbara Henry, as principal of Barbara Henry & Associates (BH&A), and with more than 25 years of museum experience, is devoted to transforming museums into thriving cultural places embraced by their communities. Her work focuses on achieving an organization’s desired public goals within an environment of increasing change, complexity, and ambiguity.

BH&A clients have included the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art; the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art; the Historic Old Sacramento Foundation; the di Rosa Center for Center for Contemporary Art; Abu Dhabi Department of Culture and Tourism; and TyPA Fundaciòn, Buenos Aires, where she served as faculty for the TyPA Lab in Museum Management.

Barbara is currently a board member for The Museum Group, a national consortium of independent museum consultants who have held leadership positions in museums. Previously, she served as its president (2018-2020).

Before BH&A, Barbara held executive positions as Lab Center Director and Chief Curator of Education at the Oakland Museum of California. She directed major projects that led to transforming the museum. A sampling of her nationally-recognized projects reflected in publications includes: How We/Visitors Changed the Gallery of California Art at the Oakland Museum of California; Partners in Discovery: Visitor-Centered Tours - Transforming History School Tours at the Oakland Museum of California; and Myth & Reality: The California Gold Rush and Its Legacy, a statewide curriculum project extending the teaching of this global event across four grade levels.

Barbara has been a panel grant reviewer for the following U.S. federal agencies: National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Science Foundation, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services. She earned her MAT in Museum Education from George Washington University and BA in Art History from U.C.