Melody Barnes

Melody Barnes is the founding executive director of the University of Virginia’s Karsh Institute of Democracy, where she leads the Institute on an action-oriented path to realizing the promise of democracy in both principle and practice. She joins Chautauqua’s weeklong exploration of “America at 250” with remarks reflecting on the foundations of democracy and justice, tracing throughlines from the country’s founding to the work of democracy today. In addition to her leadership at the Karsh Institute, Barnes is the W.L. Lyons Brown Family Director for Policy and Public Engagement in the College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences’ Democracy Initiative, a professor of practice at UVA’s Miller Center of Public Affairs, and a distinguished fellow at UVA’s School of Law. She is also co-founder of the domestic policy strategy firm MB2 Solutions. In 2024–25, Barnes was an inaugural recipient of the Chautauqua Perry Fellowship in Democracy alongside New York Times columnist David French;… View Source