About Ruth Titz-Weider

Ruth Titz-Weider holds a doctorate in physics and works in the field of extrasolar planets at the DLR Institute of Planetary Research. She frequently enjoys giving talks about the wonderful world of exoplanets in planetariums and other extracurricular learning centres. She finds it important to present astronomical missions as complex, interdisciplinary and intergenerational endeavours – similar to the construction of a cathedral in the Middle Ages.

Titz-Weider studied physics at the University of Bonn and received her doctorate in 1991 with a thesis on heterodyne receivers in the terahertz range at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy. She then adapted this receiver for atmospheric physics at what was the DLR Institute of Optoelectronics in Oberpfaffenhofen, successfully testing it on the DLR Falcon research aircraft. In 1997, she moved to the then newly founded DLR Institute of Space Sensor Technology in Berlin-Adlershof, focussing on the SOFIA flying observatory – NASA and DLR's research aircraft. However, as SOFIA was to fly for the first time only in 2010, and its activities were transferred to the newly founded SOFIA Institute in Stuttgart, Titz-Weider came to the Extrasolar Planets and Atmospheres department at the DLR Institute of Planetary Research after her parental leave. In addition to her technical work in the field of exoplanets, she is the contact person for public relations on this topic and for relevant space missions such as PLATO.