Jacqueline Barnes is Professor of Psychology at Birkbeck, University of London, UK, based at the Institute for the Study of Children, Families and Social Issues. Professor Barnes is one of the directors of the national evaluation of the UK government’s Sure Start local programmes initiative.

After qualifying at the University of Wisconsin to be an educational psychologist she returned to the UK and was awarded her PhD in Psychology from London University in 1983.

In the 1980s she developed the Early Years Behaviour Checklist with Naomi Richman, a widely used measure of the behavioural problems of young children in group settings.  She also worked at Harvard in the USA, returning afterwards to London University.  Her current research interests are: evaluation of early intervention programmes related to children’s health and development and parenting; community characteristics and the environment as they relate to family functioning and children; and the use of child care in the early years, particularly factors associated with mothers of returning to work after having a new baby.