Thomas Barnes received a B.S. with distinction in astrophysics from the University of Rochester and an M.Sc. and Ph.D. degree (1970) in astronomy from the University of Toronto. He came to UT Austin in 1970 as the W. J. McDonald Postdoctoral Fellow. Since that time he has served as Assistant Professor of Astronomy (1972-1978), Research Scientist and Assistant to the Director (1978-1980), Assistant Director (1980-1987), Associate Director (1987-2001) and Senior Research Scientist of McDonald Observatory (1993-present). He served as chief operating officer of McDonald Observatory for 21 years under directors Harlan J. Smith and Frank N. Bash. In the early 1990s he led planning for the staffing, budgeting and operation of the Hobby-Eberly Telescope. He later served as Commissioning Manager for the Hobby-Eberly Telescope, responsible for bring the telescope and its initial instruments into scientific service. He has served by election on the governing commission for variable star research of the International Astronomical Union. He also served as a peer reviewer on the first panel to evaluate proposals to use the Hubble Space Telescope. He has served on review panels for various national agencies including the National Science Foundation and NASA. He is a referee for publications submitted to international journals including The Astrophysical Journal, Nature, Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, and The Astronomical Journal. From 2006 to 2008, he served as a Program Manager at the National Science Foundation responsible for the management of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory and the National Solar Observatory. Since 1991, he has been Technical Editor for StarDate radio and StarDate magazine.