Sheryl Barnes is the Director of Digital Learning in Residential Education at MIT Open Learning. She leads a team that helps faculty use digital technologies to enhance teaching and learning for MIT students.

The Residential Education team manages MIT’s Learning Management System (Canvas) and its integrated third-party tools, with Barnes overseeing the faculty-led Learning Management System Advisory Committee. The team works directly with faculty to enhance teaching with technology, utilizing learning sciences, learning engineering, and learning analytics. They also conduct outreach through events, speakers, webinars, and documents to promote effective pedagogy and continuous instructional innovation.

In collaboration with the Director of MIT’s Teaching and Learning Lab, Barnes focuses on the responsible use of Generative AI (GAI) tools in teaching. This involves meeting with departments and faculty, teaching workshops, sharing resources online, and starting a GAI in Education Learning Community at MIT.

Barnes has over 20 years of experience at the intersection of faculty, technology, and teaching, having worked at Tufts University and Harvard University before MIT. She was also an academic adviser at Harvard, where she earned her Master’s in Teaching with Technology from the Graduate School of Education, and she holds a BA from Cornell University.