Barbara Lee is a national leader in advancing women’s equality and representation in American politics and in the field of contemporary art. She founded and leads the Barbara Lee Family Foundation.

Inspired by her grandmother’s stories of suffragists marching on New York City’s Fifth Avenue in the early 1900s, Barbara has worked to educate the public about gender disparities in government since 1998. Today, through the Foundation’s nonpartisan Governors research, Barbara gives women candidates, elected officials, and other leaders at all levels essential knowledge to meet the challenges of campaigning.

Through the Foundation, Barbara has endowed a nonpartisan training program for women at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and an internship program at the Massachusetts State House for students at Simmons College in Boston.

An advocate for Boston’s cultural life and for public access to contemporary art, Barbara is Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston.

Boston Magazine has included Barbara among “Boston’s Most Powerful Thought Leaders,” “The 100 People Who Run This Town” and is listed among their “50 Most Powerful Women” in Boston. Women’s eNews ranks her among the “21 Leaders for the 21st Century.”

Barbara earned a Master’s degree from the Boston University School of Social Work and a Bachelor’s degree from Simmons College.