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Ruth Anne Koenick was born in 1949 in Washington, D.C.  During her childhood, she attended Rock Creek Forest Elementary, in Chevy Chase, Maryland, before attending Bethesda Chevy Chase High School from 1963 to 1967.  

Ms. Koenick attended the University of Maryland, where she co-founded what is credited as being the first rape crisis center on a college campus in the United States.  With a major in criminology and a minor in psychology, she graduated in 1972.  She then went to graduate school, first at the University of Maryland and then at George Washington University, where she earned a master's degree in student affairs in 1976.  

Over the course of her career, Ms. Koenick has held numerous positions, including working as a social worker in the Department of Social Services at Roosevelt Hospital in Metuchen and coordinator at the Rape Crisis Intervention Center at Roosevelt Hospital.  In 1991, she became the director of Violence Prevention and Victim Assistance (formerly Sexual Assault Services and Crime Victim Assistance) at Rutgers University.  During her time as director, she worked as a member of the ACPA Presidential Task Force on Sexual Violence in Higher Education in 2014, as well as developing a statewide Campus Sexual Assault Victim's Bill of Rights in New Jersey.  Ms. Koenick retired in 2016.  She has published numerous works and has taught classes at Rutgers in the Graduate School of Education, School of Social Work and the Department of Women's and Gender Studies.