Barbara Henry

Barbara Henry, as Principal of Barbara Henry & Associates, 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. A museum practitioner with more than 25 years of experience, her expertise spans various community engagement strategies, including long-term advisory councils; visitor-centered experiences engaging diverse audiences; experimental public programs and education initiatives; and related strategies for institutional change and sustainability. She is a visiting faculty member for Fundación TyPA’s TyPA Lab on Museum Management. She is currently President of The Museum Group, a US collective of museum consultants. 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. Barbara co-edited the book How We/Visitors Changed Our Museum: Transforming the Gallery of California Art at the Oakland Museum of California. She has been a panel reviewer for the US National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Science Foundation and the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Barbara earned her MAT in Museum Education from The George Washington University and her BA in Art History from U.C. Berkeley.