During my PhD period at the Helmholtz Center Munich and Technical University Munich, I have worked on the molecular complexity and molecular diversity of soluble organic and metalorganic matter in meteorites [Phd thesis]. I used a nontargeted, data-driven approach, as pioneered by my supervisor Philippe Schmitt-Kopplin within the past twenty years [Schmitt-Kopplin2010]. The PhD thesis was awarded by the ACS Astrochemistry Dissertation Award [see more details here]. Based on these previous studies, a decent level of understanding of the abiotic molecular diversity present in meteorites could be gained. Technically, I have basically used three types of methodologies, (i) chemical analytics [Ruf2018Life], (ii) quantum chemical methods [Ruf2018JMol] and (iii) multivariate statistical data analysis [Ruf2017PNAS]. In addition, we took emphasis on the interplay between experimental and computational data [Ruf2017PNAS].

During my first postdoctoral position at the Aix-Marseille University with Gregoire Danger, I was studying molecular complexity and diversity of soluble organic matter in astrophysical ice analogs [Ruf2019ApJLa, Gautier2019EPSL, Ruf2019ApJLb] . In addition, we have developed a global data-driven workflow to analyze LC-Orbitrap MS data [Ruf2019Life]. The ASTRO group (Department “Physics of Ionic and Molecular Interactions”) of Aix-Marseille University pioneered laboratory astrophysics experiments on interstellar ice analogs and cometary analog materials in terms of synthesis and the analysis [Danger2016]. My research stay in the ASTRO group of Marseille allowed me to extend my level of expertise by chemically characterizing extraterrestrial materials prior to the accretion phase. My objective has been to analyze big data sets resulting from high-resolving chemical analysis. 

In my second postdoctoral position, I am currently working as a CNES Postdoctoral Fellow, in collaboration with Gregoire Danger (Aix-Marseille University) and Martin Rubin (University of Bern). Additionally, I work as a visiting researcher at the LMU Munich, hosted by Oliver Trapp. The project is about the chemistry of comet 67P, with main focus on chemical networks inferred from Rosina data from the Rosetta space mission.

Afterwards, I worked as a DAAD Fellow (German Academic Exchange Service) with Karin Öberg (Harvard CfA) on molecular networks of protostars.

Currently, I am working as an ORIGINS Fellow & PI at the ORIGINS Excellence Cluster in Munich on network science methods in Astrochemistry. I have my own research group with three students. Furthermore, I am working as an invited official member of the JAXA Hayabusa 2 sample return space mission on data from Asteroid Ryugu.

My research interests focus on the origin and evolution of organic molecules. Method-wise, I am interested in chemical networks and data analysis of organic matter in astrochemical samples, as inferred from experimental (e.g. high-dimensional mass spectrometric data) and computational data (e.g., DFT or MP2).

For more information, please find here my CV and my list of publications.

AWARDS

Excellence Cluster ORIGINS Postdoctoral Fellowship 2022

DAAD Postdoctoral Fellowship 2021

CNES Postdoctoral Fellowship 2020

ACS Astrochemistry 2018 Outstanding Dissertation Award

PROFESSIONAL EXPERTISE