Ruth Gilgenbach
Ruth completed her Ph.D. under the supervision of Professor Santanu Roy in 2012 and joined the Antitrust Section of the Office of the Texas Attorney General in Summer 2012. In 2013, she moved to Princeton, New Jersey where she is currently a partner at Ashenfelter & Ashmore, LLP, a boutique economics consulting firm. At SMU, she received the Dean’s Dissertation Fellowship and was involved in a number of campus organizations and committees including the Center for Teaching Excellence, the Dedman College Strategic Planning Committee, and the Graduate Women’s Organization.
Ruth worked on a number of high profile and very interesting projects at the Office of the Texas Attorney General. In particular, she was part of a team that successfully litigated the eBooks price fixing case against Apple and five large publishers that eventually secured over $560 million in consumer relief.
At Ashenfelter & Ashmore, Ruth has continued working on very interesting projects. These include labor discrimination cases in industries ranging from mass transit workers to financial services employees, antitrust cases in product and labor markets in industries including animation studio workers and registered nurses, and international trade policy cases in front of the US International Trade Commission (USITC). Her cases in front of the USITC include the safeguard action regarding washing machine imports that marked the start of President Trump's trade war in 2018. Even more recently, she was involved on behalf of a group of plaintiffs in the litigation surrounding the addition of the question “is this person a citizen of the United States?” to the 2020 Census.
Ruth has also maintained her connection to academia by teaching Law & Economics at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey.
In addition to receiving a high-quality education in economics at SMU, I learned how to convey technical information effectively and clearly. An important part of my job includes explaining technically complicated material to people with varying backgrounds in economics—lawyers, judges, and members of the public. My experiences teaching, tutoring at the Altshuler Learning Enhancement Center, serving on university boards and committees, and presenting my research at department seminars helped sharpen my public speaking and advocacy skills, and have served me well in my career.