Associate Specialist, Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education, University of California, San Fransisco

After practicing law for over 33 years, Richard L. Barnes gave up his practice to devote his time and talent to public policy advocacy as the full-time Volunteer Government Relations Manager for the American Lung Association of Oklahoma (ALAO) from December 1997 to June 30, 2004. He was responsible for all of the public policy advocacy activities of ALAO on tobacco control and other public health issues. 

He has been a Researcher at the UCSF Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education (CTCRE) since July 1, 2004, and completed a two-year Post-Doctoral Fellowship in the UCSF Health Services Research Training Program in 2006. In addition to research of the tobacco industry documents in the UCSF Legacy Tobacco Documents Library (resulting in two published peer-reviewed journal articles), his other projects at the CTCRE have included mentoring other researchers and researching and writing state tobacco control activity reports that explore the reasons for the successes, and the failures, of tobacco control efforts.

He has won numerous He has won numerous awards in recognition of his leadership and skills in public policy advocacy, and has used his extensive advocacy experiences to train others in successful public health policy advocacy methodologies.  He currently teaches a public health policy advocacy course for students from all four health sciences schools at UCSF, and will begin teaching public policy advocacy at UC Hastings College of the Law in the Fall Semester 2009.

Richard recently has been the recipient of two faculty appointments. He is now a Health Sciences Clinical Professor at the University of California, San Francisco and an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Law at the University of California, Hastings College of Law.