Dr. Barker is currently director of ASU’s Transformative Healthcare Networks, co-director of the Complex Adaptive Systems Initiative and as a professor of practice within the School of Life Sciences, part of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. She is also the former Deputy Director of the National Cancer Institute (NCI), serving as the Deputy Director for Strategic Scientific Initiatives. In this role she has developed and implemented multi/trans-disciplinary programs in strategic areas of cancer research and advanced technologies including: the Nanotechnology Alliance for Cancer; The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA); and the Clinical Proteomics Technologies Initiative for Cancer.