Dr. Ruth Heidelberger earned her undergraduate, graduate, and medical degrees at Stony Brook University. As an undergraduate, Dr. Heidelberger trained in the laboratory of Nobel Prize-winning chemist Dr. Paul C. Lauterbur. She then performed her dissertation research under the direction of neuroscientist Dr. Gary Matthews. She received her postdoctoral research training in membrane biophysics under the guidance of Nobel Laureate Professor Erwin Neher at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen, Germany. Dr. Heidelberger joined the faculty of the McGovern Medical School of the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston in 1996, where she is a tenured professor in the Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy and the Frederic B. Asche Chair in Ophthalmology.