Penelope Anne 'Pepe' Roberts was born in Rhyl, Denbighshire, in 1943 and grew up in Southampton. She read social anthropology at Newnham College, Cambridge, before accepting a post with Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) in Ghana at Akrokerri Teacher Training College. She returned to Ghana to research the outcomes of teacher training courses and the experience of rural schoolteachers. She ran a rural development project in Nigeria in the 1970s, before returning to Britain to take up teaching positions at the Universities of Reading and Liverpool (Department of Sociology) respectively. Roberts was a member of the Editorial Working Group of the 'Review of African Political Economy', alongside co-editing issues, she contributed to studies on rural development in West Africa. She retired to south-west France and died in 2015.