Ruth Lister has been Emeritus Professor of Social Policy at Loughborough University since October 2010, having joined the University in 1994. She was Professor and Head of the Department of Applied Social Studies at the University of Bradford. She is a former director of the Child Poverty Action Group and is now its honorary president. In 1999, Ruth was awarded the CBE, and was appointed as a member of the House of Lords in 2010 as Baroness Lister of Burtersett.
Professor Lister has published widely on poverty and social exclusion, welfare state reform, gender and citizenship. She served on the Commission on Social Justice, the Opsahl Commission into the Future of Northern Ireland, the Commission on Poverty, Participation and Power, the Fabian Commission on Life Chances and Child Poverty and the National Equality Panel. She was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2009 and received a life-time achievement award from the Social Policy Association in 2010.