About Magnus Rueping

Magnus Rueping studied at the Technical University of Berlin, Trinity College Dublin and ETH Zürich, where he completed his diploma thesis under the direction of Professor Dieter Seebach. He stayed in the Seebach group and obtained his Ph.D. from the ETH in 2002 working on the synthesis, the structural and the biological aspects of oligo(hydroxybutanoates) and of β- and γ-peptides. Magnus then moved to Harvard University to work with Professor David Evans on enantioselective transition-metal catalysis.

In August 2004, he was directly appointed to a C3-professorship, the Degussa Endowed Professorship of Synthetic Organic Chemistry at Johann Wolfgang Goethe University of Frankfurt. After four years in Frankfurt, Magnus received several offers of academic positions and decided to accept a Chair and Full Professorship at RWTH Aachen University. Subsequently, he was appointed Professor of Chemical and Biological Sciences at KAUST and Associate Director of the KAUST Catalysis Center (KCC).

His group’s research activities are directed toward the development and simplification of catalytic methodology and technology, and their application in the sustainable synthesis of diverse functional molecules. Over the years the group has developed new catalysts and catalytic concepts involving various types of catalysis: homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis, asymmetric catalysis, metal catalysis, organocatalysis and biocatalysis, photo(redox) catalysis, electrocatalysis, mechanocatalysis as well as combined processes resulting in tandem or cascade procedures and applications. In addition the group is involved in the development of continuous flow (micro)reactor systems, including feedback algorithms and in-operando analytics. 

The full length video is available at HOME (kaust.edu.sa)