Ruth Barach Cox is a private conservator of easel paintings owning her own company, Painting Conservation Inc., in Durham North Carolina. She consults and treats pictures from a number of museums in the Southeast who do not have painting conservators on staff as well as private collectors. Additionally she teaches occasionally UNC-CH and Duke undergraduate and graduate students and works closely with art historians and curators on art historical and technical research and exhibitions. She has published widely on artist's painting techniques from a variety of periods. In addition to serving on the Arts Society board she is a member of the Friends of Judaic Art Committee. She has served on the governing boards of Temple Beth Or and worked on a variety of art related committees in the triangle area. Prior to moving to North Carolina in 1989 she was an employee in the painting conservation department of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC. She earned an MS in painting conservation from The University of Delaware and Winterthur Museum after completing an MA in Anglo-Saxon and Viking Art in Archaeology in Durham, England. Her undergraduate degrees were from Brown University graduating with a BA in Classical Art and Archaeology and Medieval History.