Ruth Margaret Gibson

Ruth Margaret Gibson is a researcher in global health who studies the effects of war, blockades, economic sanctions and foreign aid withdrawal on maternal and child health.

Early life and education

Gibson earned an honours Bachelor of Science and a Master of Science at the University of Toronto. She completed a PhD in global health and strategic studies at the University of British Columbia.

Career

Before entering academia, Gibson worked for a decade in humanitarian and global health roles across eight countries. She was a postdoctoral research fellow in the Stanford Health Policy department at the time of the study's publication in 2025. She held a concurrent appointment at Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation, where she is an affiliated scholar. The study assessed 88 aid sanction episodes imposed on 67 low-income and middle-income countries between 1990 and 2019. A World Health Organization technical report on monitoring the health effects of sanctions cited the study in October 2025.

Gibson and Gary L. Darmstadt wrote a 2025 comment in The Lancet Global Health on four decades of scholarship on sanctions and humanitarian outcomes. She was a co-author of a 2025 correspondence in The Lancet on health safeguards under the United Nations reimposition of sanctions on Iran. She was the senior author of a 2026 comment in The Lancet Global Health on medical evacuations from the Gaza Strip to the West Bank and East Jerusalem. She was a co-author of a 2026 editorial in the International Journal of Health Policy and Management on attacks on academic institutions in the Eastern Mediterranean.

In March 2026 Gibson wrote a report for the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies on United States General License 134A and Russian energy companies. She co-wrote an opinion article on sanctions and health for Al Jazeera in November 2025. The New York Times cited her in March 2026 on the health effects of the United States oil blockade of Cuba.

Awards and honours

Gibson received a Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Government of Canada, which supported her postdoctoral research from 2022 to 2024.