Ruth Rivkin

Dr. Ruth Rivkin is a Polar Bears International Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Manitoba. She studies the ecology and evolution of polar bears to better understand the impacts of increasing climate change in the North. She uses cutting-edge genomic and bioinformatic tools to assess adaptation and patterns of current and historic movement of polar bears to help inform conservation and management strategies. Ruth earned her BSc specializing in wildlife biology from the University of Guelph, then continued on to complete a PhD at the University of Toronto on urban evolutionary ecology. Ruth’s PhD research combined field experiments, natural populations surveys, and next generation sequencing and genetic analyses to understand the role urbanization plays in shaping the ecology and evolution of species and their interactions with one another. Originally from Newfoundland, Ruth now lives in Ontario, where she spends her free time trail running with her dogs and baking sourdough bread.