Barnes is the author of Conceiving Masculinity: Male Infertility, Medicine, and Identity (Temple University Press 2014), based on ethnographic observations in infertility clinics, laboratories, and medical conferences and interviews with medical practitioners and patients.[2] In 2015, Barnes was awarded the Book of the Year Prize by the Foundation for the Sociology of Health and Illness for "making the most significant contribution to the sub-discipline of medical sociology."[3] Previous winners of the prize include Nelly Oudshoorn, Annemarie Mol, and Margaret Lock.
Barnes's research has been featured by several media websites, including TheAtlantic.com,[4] NBCNews.com, ABCNews.com, Slate.com, TheGuardian.com, and TheTelegraph.com. She has been interviewed by Texas Public Radio, WHYY Philadelphia, and Voice of Russia UK.
In 2014 a TEDx talk given by Barnes was featured as an "Editor's Pick" on the TEDx homepage. The same year Barnes received a Future Research Leaders Award from the Economic and Social Research Council in the UK.[5]
In 2016, Barnes received a grant from the National Science Foundation's Division of Social and Economic Sciences to write an ethnography of children's medicine.[6]
Barnes has taught sociology courses at the University of Cambridge, Pacific University, Brigham Young University, University of California at San Diego, and Portland Community College.
