Prof. Barrett is a leading figure in Australian and international music education. She is currently professor and Head of the Sir Zelman Cowen School of Music and Performance at Monash University. Among her many achievements Professor Barrett was awarded a Fulbright Senior Research Fellowship in 2018 to undertake preliminary investigations of children’s singing and song-making in the archives of the Smithsonian Institute, and the Library of Congress (Washington DC) and was elected Beaufort Visiting Research Fellow at St John’s College University of Cambridge in 2019. She has held a research residency funded by the Foundation de Maison des Sciences de l’Homme at IRCAM (Institute for Research and Coordination in Acoustics /Musique) investigating creative pedagogy and transmission practices (2019). In 2023 she was awarded the Albi Rosenthal Fellowship at the Bodleian Library, Oxford. She was awarded the Fellowship of the Australian Society for Music Education in 2011and Honorary Life Membership of the International Society for Music Education in 2022. Professor Barrett has held nine ARC grants, seven as lead Chief Investigator, in addition to numerous other funded research projects. She is currently Founding Director of the Pedagogies of Creativity, Collaboration, Expertise and Enterprise (PoCCEE) research focus at Monash.

Professor Barrett has held positions as a Director of the Australian Music Centre, the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, and the Queensland Music Festival. She has served as President of the International Society for Music Education (2012-2014), Chair of the World Alliance for Arts Education (2013-2015), Chair of the Asia-Pacific Symposium for Music Education Research (2009-2011), board member of the International Society for Music Education (2008-2010), and National President of the Australian Society for Music Education (1999-2001).

In addition, Professor Barrett has been an advisor for arts and educational bodies nationally and internationally, including the Australia Council for the Arts, the Australian Curriculum and Assessment Reporting Authority, and the United Kingdom Qualifications and Curriculum Authority. Her research has addressed the pedagogies of creativity, collaboration, expertise and enterprise, the ecopolitics of music education, artistic citizenship in and for music, and music early learning and development. Recent publications include: The Oxford Handbook of Early Childhood Learning and Development (2023 with G.F. Welch, OUP), and  Music education, ecopolitical professionalism, and public pedagogy: Towards systems transformation (2024 with H.M. Westerlund, Springer). She has published in excess of 120 articles and book chapters in the major journals and collections of the disciplines of music and music education.