Ruth is a geographer with a 30-year career in environmental research. She previously worked as a mapping specialist for the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, before moving to the Conservation Science Group at Cambridge University. After a long time in the flatlands of East Anglia she managed to navigate herself back to her home patch of the Staffordshire Moorlands.  In 2012, she secured a role teaching geography at Staffordshire University in Stoke-on-Trent where she stayed for over 11 years – bringing 100s of students into the Peak District for fieldwork. A recent career move has taken her to the Royal Society of Wildlife Trusts. Here she is involved in an exciting landscape project, to restore the temperate rainforests of the British Isles. Now living in Leek, Ruth was appointed by Defra to the Board of the National Park in 2023.

The Peak District has always been an important part of her life, she has been walking its pathways for over 50 years and values the place and all it stands for highly. She is keen to foster appreciation of this special and fragile landscape and to advocate for a sustainable future for this nationally important place.