Jay Ruby, an emeritus professor of Anthropology at Temple University in Philadelphia, has been exploring the relationship between cultures and pictures for the past 40 years and is considered a leader in the field of visual anthropology and multimedia ethnography. His research interests revolve around the application of anthropological insights to the production and comprehension of photographs, film and television.
He holds degrees from the University of California, Los Angeles. A founding member of the Society for the Anthropology of Visual Communication, past president of International Film Seminars, Ruby holds advisory and board memberships in a number of national and international organizations. Since 1960, he has edited a variety of journals on American archaeology, popular culture, and visual anthropology. For the past three decades, he has conducted ethnographic studies of pictorial communication in Juniata County, PA., Oak Park, Illinois and Bohemian Malibu.