Ruth Morgan is a Lecturer in South African Sign Language and joined the University of the Witwatersrand in July 2010. She has worked in the field of signed languages and Deaf cultural studies for over twenty years. In the late 1980s, after completing her MA degree, she worked with a group of Deaf Namibians to compile a dictionary of Namibian Sign Language. After completing her PhD, she returned to South Africa where she did social research. Her postdoctoral research focused on working with a team of mostly Deaf people to collect and analyse the life stories of Deaf South Africans. She then worked for eight years in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer LGBTIQ sector as the Director of the NGO Gay and Lesbian Memory in Action. Morgans more recent life story work has focused on the intersection of Deaf, gay and HIV issues. She has also worked in teaching English to Deaf adults.