Sarah Rugheimer

Areas of Interest: Astrophysics | Keywords: Exoplanets, Astronomy, Photochemistry, Extraterrestrial Life, Climate Modeling

Dr Sarah Rugheimer is an astrophysicist at the University of Edinburgh. Rugheimer is interested in the difficulties of distinguishing life from non-life on planets light years away and in how we might be fooled by signatures that mimic life.

Rugheimer earned her Ph.D. at Harvard followed by postdocs at St. Andrews and Oxford. Rugheimer was an Associate Professor and the Carswell Chair at York University before moving to Edinburgh in 2025. Her TED talk “The Search for Microscopic Aliens” has 1.8 million views on TED.com. Her new Great Courses series is called “Experiencing James Webb: The Invisible Universe Revealed”.

Sarah Rugheimer

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