In 2017 I was awarded a Future Fellowship by the Australian Research Council in the School of Science at the University of New South Wales Canberra. I’m working on connecting different types of stellar explosions to their progenitors (e.g. age of star when it exploded, how massive it was, nature of companion star). More information is available on my personal webpage: https://ashleyruiterastro.wordpress.com/ In 2023 I became the Vice-President of the Astronomical Society of Australia. 

From April 2014 - Oct 2017 I was a postdoctoral fellow at the Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics (Mount Stromlo) in the group of Brian Schmidt at the Australian National University. 
Before that, I was a postdoctoral fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in the supernova group of Wolfgang Hillebrandt in Garching, Germany (Sept 2009 - April 2014).
I received my PhD in 2009 from New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, New Mexico, USA, under the supervision of K. Belczynski. I spent the last year of my PhD at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass, USA, in J. Grindlay’s high energy group. 
Pre-PhD, I received my Masters from Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada (2005), and my Bachelors degree from York University in Toronto, Canada (2002), where I was active in leading observatory tours. 

Teaching: 

2018-2023: ZPEM 2509 - Astrophysics (lectures, labs, tutorials, Convener 2021-2023)

2021-2023: ZPEM 3532 - Special Topics in Physics & Oceanography (lectures and project supervisor)

2023-2024: ZPEM 1501 - Mechanics, Waves & Thermodynamics (lectures, labs, tutorials; Convener 2024) 

2023: ZPEM 1502 - Electromagnetism & Modern Physics (tutorials)

2022: ZPEM 2405 - Special Topics in Oceanography (Convener)