Ruben was born in 1990 in Groningen, The Netherlands. He obtained his Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry in 2014 from the University of Groningen. During his Masters he worked on the total synthesis of isotopically labelled archaeal lipids in the group of Prof. Adriaan Minnaard (University of Groningen), for which he won the 2016 Unilever Research prize. In 2015 he obtained an Erasmus grant to work in the research group of Prof. Thomas Magauer at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich on Asymmetric Palladium Catalyzed Dearomative Tsuji-Trost Allylations. In 2017 he returned to the group of Prof. Minnaard as PhD student to continue working on the synthesis of archaeal lipids and other complex natural products. The main focus of his research is uncovering the biosynthetic pathway of the 72-membered tetra-ether lipids found in archaea. He graduated June 13, 2022 and after joined the Minnaard group on a Post Doctoral project.