Anna Barbara was born in South of Italy and graduated at Politecnico di Milano. Now she is the professor and researcher in School of Design at Politecnico di Milano. She in research of the relationships between senses, time and spaces, developed in professional works and education.

She has been visiting professor at Kookmin University in the Architecture, Design and Interior Design faculties and professor at the Techno Brain Master 21 at Seoul. In the 2000 she won the Canon Foundation Fellowship for making research at Hosei University Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning in Tokyo. Since 2001 she has been professor of Sensorial Design and Architecture at Politecnico di Milano Faculty of Design (2001-2006); Director of the Fashion School at NABA (2007- 2011) , and Director of Textile Design and New Materials Master Program at NABA (2008-2011).

She is the author of Storie di Architettura attraverso i sensi (Stories of architecture through the senses, Bruno Mondadori, 2000), Invisible Architectures.Experiencing places throught the senses of smell (Skira, 2006) and Sensi, tempo e architettura (Senses, time and architecture, Postmedia Books, 2012) and many other publications.