Barbara has been developing land for public benefit in cities for more than thirty years. From 2012 to 2021, she developed urban farm sites in Boston on behalf of the Urban Farming Institute and Boston Farms Community Land Trust. This included the first farms developed after Boston made commercial urban farms an as-of-right land use.

She has worked in the public and not for profit sectors as well as in academia. Through her work, she has researched and observed urban farms across the country and across the world. Working with UFI brought together her experience developing urban land with a love of all things edible. Barbara is a licensed architect, holds degrees from UC Berkeley and Columbia University, and she was a Loeb Fellow in advanced environmental studies at Harvard University.