Melody Barnes is the founding executive director of the University of Virginia’s Karsh Institute of Democracy. 

A dedicated public servant with more than 25 years of experience shaping public policy, Barnes served as assistant to the president and director of the White House Domestic Policy Council under President Barack Obama. She previously was executive vice president for policy at the Center for American Progress and chief counsel to Senator Edward M. Kennedy on the Senate Judiciary Committee. She began her career in law as an associate at Shearman & Sterling in New York.

At UVA, Barnes also serves as the W.L. Lyons Brown Family Director for Policy and Public Engagement, a professor of practice at the Miller Center, and a distinguished fellow at the School of Law. She co-founded MB2 Solutions, a domestic policy strategy firm, and serves on numerous nonprofit, corporate, and philanthropic boards.