Barsky was the Deputy Director of the Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust (New York) from 1999 until her arrival in Philadelphia. There, she supervised and led all programmatic activities including FASPE (the Fellowships at Auschwitz for the Study of Professional Ethics) and Auschwitz Jewish Center, the museum’s affiliate in Oswiecim, Poland. She founded MJH’s Education Department in 1996 and was instrumental in the planning of the Robert M. Morgenthau wing expansion (2003). She was a professor of Museum Studies at NYU (2003-2011). Prior to her tenure at MJH, she worked at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Institute of Contemporary Art (Philadelphia), and P.S. 1 (New York City).

She did her graduate work in the history of art at the University of Pennsylvania and has an undergraduate degree from New York University.