From 1985 until the early 1990s he served as an officer in the United States Army Reserve and National Guard[5] while working in Washington as an economist with the Institute of International Finance.
[7] While at Cornell he has led or been actively involved in a variety of research, training and policy outreach projects promoting economic growth, poverty reduction, food security, and agricultural and rural development in Africa and Asia.
[8] As co-director of Cornell's African Food Security and Natural Resources Management program, he likewise had multi-year projects supported by the National Science Foundation, including one examining the relationship between Kenyan small farmers, their communities and their land.
A Pew Charitable Trusts-supported project he led resulted in a 2005 edited volume, The Social Economics of Poverty: On Identities, Communities, Groups and Networks.
[16] After spending the first half of 2013 in Australia on a Fulbright Senior Scholarship, Barrett was appointed the David J. Nolan Director of the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management.