Ruth Nelson is currently working as an interdisciplinary PhD researcher in the Centre for Urban Science and Policy at Delft University of Technology. Both her practice and research are embedded in system thinking approaches and evidence based methods that draw on data science, digital technologies and AI, complex network science, urbanism, architecture and sociology. Her skills lie in linking data analysis and computational methods with decision making for urban planning, design and policy.

The World Inequality Report (2022) shows that inequalities have increased within almost every country over the last 30 years. Urban inequalities have traditionally been conceived primarily as an economic issue, measured by popular economic, unidimensional indices such as the Gini Index. Ruth's research alternatively sheds light on urban inequalities as a multi-dimensional phenomenon, that spans a broad range of thematic areas such as housing, accessibility, energy poverty and digitisation. Ruth has assisted and lead various courses, at both Tecnologico de Monterrey in Mexico and TU Delft in the Netherlands, as well as consult in the areas of urban planning and policy support, spatial analytics and research.