She writes a food history column for the weekend magazine of the Financial Times and from 2015 has been the co-presenter of the BBC television series Back in Time for.... Polly Russell was educated at the University of Exeter from where she earned a first class bachelor's degree in American and Commonwealth Arts (1990–1994).

Russell received a stipend to spend a year researching food in Louisiana, after which she returned to the U.K., where she worked as a kitchen junior at The Carved Angel and Moro Restaurant.

She joined Marks & Spencer in July 1997, where she worked in product development, and then completed her PhD at the University of Sheffield in 2003.

She joined the British Library in 2007 as Lead Curator for Human Geography and Anthropology.

At the British Library, Russell has worked on Sisterhood & After, an oral history of the Women's Liberation Movement, and on the digitisation of Spare Rib magazine.