Barbara Bird is best known for her award-winning documentaries Handmaidens (1995) distributed by Fanlight Productions, Boston, and Album (2002), Best of The Fest VOL 2 distributed by Docurama. With a degree in nursing from the University of Michigan she practiced surgical nursing for many years before earning an MFA in Radio/Television/Film from Northwestern University in 1995.

As an Associate Professor of Communications at Penn State University Ms Bird is particularly interested in guiding students toward public scholarship film projects that involve a community partner and a community need. Professor Bird's faculty/student collaborative documentaries have been collected onto the DVD Agents of Change (2005).

Her areas of expertise include: documentary film/video; public scholarship media production; nursing issues; and public health.