Barnes is currently the assistant dean of social sciences and a professor of sociocultural anthropology at Endicott College. She wrote her dissertation on “Still Uplifting the Race: Black Professional Wives and the Career and Family Debate.” Her most recent book “Raising the Race: Black Career Women Redefine Marriage, Motherhood and Community” won the 2017 Race, Gender, and Class Section Book Award from the American Sociological Association.