Dr. Barnes is an Epidemiologist and Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Epidemiology & Biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). She completed her undergraduate education at Stanford University and her graduate education at the University of California, Berkeley.
Dr. Barnes is internationally recognized as an expert in the epidemiology of brain health, cognitive decline, dementia, and Alzheimer’s disease. She has published more than 160 peer-reviewed publications in leading journals including Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), New English Journal of Medicine (NEJM), and Lancet Neurology. Her work has been supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Department of Defense (DoD), Alzheimer's Association, and private donors.
Fun fact:
- Before Dr. Barnes turned her attention to brain health and dementia, she was on the team of researchers who discovered in 1995 that the tobacco industry had known since the 1960s that cigarettes are harmful and addictive and had been hiding this information from Congress and the public. The team analyzed internal documents that were delivered in an unmarked box from “Mr. Butts,” a reference to a Doonesbury cartoon character. Their analysis culminated in a collection of five articles published in July 1995 in JAMA, as well as a book, The Cigarette Papers. After these publications, the tobacco industry began to lose court cases for the first time against people suing them for lying about the health effects of their products. In 1998, the five major tobacco companies reached a Master Settlement Agreement with the attorneys general for 46 states and the District of Columbia for $206 billion. Ultimately, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration began regulating tobacco products in 2009.