Barry is Research & Operations Director, for Nathan Speech Services, LLC., located in Pittsburgh, PA.  An industrial-organizational psychologist by training, much of his early work was as a researcher or consultant on organizational culture, employee selection, and performance management. He published a book, book chapters and numerous articles on performance management, selection, and training. In 2018 his article, Employee Engagement in Nonprofit Organizations was one of the 20 most downloaded articles in Employee Relations Today. He has also published two trade journal articles on safety and personality. 

Over the past six years he has committed himself to autism. He became interested in autism through his wife, Janice Nathan, MS., CCC-SLP, whose private practice specializes in working with autistic individuals. Janice grew up in an autistic family, and received an autism diagnosis in November, 2021. With Janice, he is coauthor of Building Reasoning and Problem-solving Skills in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders: A Step-by-Step Guide to the Thinking in Speech® Intervention (2018), Jessica Kingsley Publishers, Ltd. 

Barry and Janice’s autism research includes “Turning Behavior and Anxiety into Communication for Social Problem-Solving by Thinking in Speech®,” presented at the 12th Annual International Autism Europe Congress, in Nice, France (September, 2019); and two current funded research projects at the University of Pittsburgh: “Addressing Autism in African American Families,” led by Dr. Valire Carr Copeland of the School of Social Work, and “Neurocognitive Therapy for Children with Autism,” led by Dr. Barbara Baumann of Department of Psychiatry in the School of Medicine. Their research poster, “Innovative Neurocognitive Therapy Intervention for Autistic Children: Preliminary Results from a Remote, Synchronous Training Program for SLPs” will be presented at the INSAR 2022 Annual Meeting.

 In 2019, Barry and Janice participated in the NSF-funded Pitt Ventures First Gear program of the Pitt Innovation Institute, the only clinical project invited to participate. In 2020, Thinking in Speech was one of only nine recipients to received a Pitt Innovation Challenge (PInCh) award from the University of Pittsburgh Clinical & Translational Science Institute (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfwjx24cst8). Their manuscript, “Thinking in Speech: A neurocognitive intervention to help autistic individuals improve their self-regulation ability,” will be submitted for peer review publication in Fall, 2023.

Barry was the facilitator of a panel discussion on “Autism and the School-to-Prison Pipeline,” presented at the 2019 University of Pittsburgh School of Education Center for Urban Education Summer Educator Forum (CUESEF), and a co-presenter with Jamie Upshaw, M.S., Executive Director of Autism Urban Connections Inc., at the 2019 Greater Pittsburgh Nonprofit Partnership Summit, “Addressing Autism in the Black Community: Autism Urban Connections, Inc.”  Barry is a blogger for Therapist Neurodiversity Collective, Inc. (therapistndc.org), where he writes about problems with Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA).

Barry was an honorable mention for 2018 Noir Nation Golden Fedora Poetry Prize in International Crime Fiction.