[2] Rosalind Mary Ridley was born in Coventry, UK and educated at Barr's Hill Grammar School, Coventry and Newnham College, Cambridge University (1968-71), where she read Natural Sciences (biological), majoring in Psychology.

[3] She obtained her PhD at the Institute of Psychiatry, London under the supervision of George Ettlinger.

[4] In 1977, she joined the Clinical Research Centre, Division of Psychiatry at Northwick Park Hospital, Harrow, London.

[17] She demonstrated the transmissibility of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) and scrapie to primates[18] and argued that the evidence for BSE and scrapie being acquired by maternal transmission was also compatible with genetic susceptibility to disease.

[19] In experiments using data extending over 25 years, she demonstrated that the amyloid proteins found in Alzheimer's disease were self-assembling and experimentally transmissible, establishing a link in pathogenesis between prion diseases and the other neurodegenerative proteinopathies[20] Ridley's current research lies in aspects of cognitive psychology to be found in late nineteenth and early twentieth century books for children, especially the works of J. M.