Dr Hannah Rudman is Senior Challenge Research Fellow & Data Policy Lead. Hannah’s digital and data innovation applied research and development work is grounded in interdisciplinary Participatory Action Research, which is practice-led rather than practice-based, and typically helps to create actionable knowledge with participants. It is about working out how digital tools and data can best assist in assuring, strengthening and proving Scotland's natural economy's - and its agriculture and land-based sectors' - impact on grand challenges. It is also investigating the question: can distributed ledger technologies (DLT), digital technologies and digital data build human trust in the reporting of food quality and security, supply chain, natural economy and climate truths? As data policy lead, she will innovate around how we can utilise data to prove SRUC’s positive impact on the natural economy. 

Hannah has interests in Digital Ethics, and is a member of The Scottish Government’s Digital Identity Scotland Technical Expert Group, and was a former member of the Scottish Government’s 2020 Climate Group. She co-authored Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLT) in Public Services commissioned and published by The Scottish Government in 2018, and is an Expert Evaluator for the European Commission’s European Innovation Council. She was Special Advisor to the Cultural Enterprise Office and Scottish Arts Council/Creative Scotland. She is also an experienced non-executive director and serves as Board Trustee for the National Galleries of Scotland. She has a PhD in Information Systems (Computer Science), and is a highly experienced Digital Transformation expert and entrepreneur, and creative practitioner.