Short answers, pulled from the story.
Polly Russell is a food historian and curator at the British Library, where she is responsible for research on social science and food. She also writes a food history column for the Financial Times Weekend magazine and has co-presented the BBC series Back in Time for... since 2015.
Polly Russell earned a first-class bachelor's degree in American and Commonwealth Arts from the University of Exeter between 1990 and 1994. She then completed a master's degree in journalism at Louisiana State University from 1995 to 1996.
Before joining the British Library, Polly Russell worked as a kitchen junior at The Carved Angel and Moro Restaurant. In July 1997 she joined Marks & Spencer in product development, and she completed her PhD at the University of Sheffield in 2003.
Polly Russell joined the British Library in 2007 as Lead Curator for Human Geography and Anthropology, and since 2008 she has been curator in Social Sciences. Her projects there include Sisterhood & After, an oral history of the Women's Liberation Movement, and the digitisation of Spare Rib magazine.
Polly Russell has co-presented the BBC television series Back in Time for... alongside Sara Cox since 2015.
Polly Russell co-wrote The Kitchen Revolution, published by Ebury Press in 2008 with Rosie Sykes and Zoe Heron. She also co-created Welcome to London, a 2015 map published by Herb Lester Associates with Jenny Linford and Mikey Burton.
Polly Russell founded the British Library's annual Food Season in 2018, and she continues to curate it today.