Ronald Ruff, ’71 BA Psychology, is a leading specialist in working with traumatically brain injured patients and their families as a clinical neuropsychologist and rehabilitation psychologist at UC San Francisco where he is a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry.

Also established at his San Francisco Clinical Neurosciences office, Ruff provides neuropsychological examination, psychotherapy, and research services to brain-injured patients. His research has focused on mild traumatic brain injury patients and the development of cognitive remediation. Ruff has developed and published four neuropsychological tests to evaluate patients afflicted by neurological illness.

After starting with the aim of becoming a teacher, Ruff recalls that a sequence of experimental psychology classes opened up a new world for him. While he did not enjoy experimenting with rats, Ruff said the data gathering and analysis unexpectedly became a fascination for him.

“This insight plugged me into science like I never had been before,” Ruff said. “However, I also made the decision that I would in the future collect data with children and adults rather than rats.”

Ruff earned his Ph.D. in Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology from the University of Zurich in Switzerland and served post-doctoral fellowships at Oxford University in Great Britain and Stanford University. His professional career has included a professorship at UC San Diego where Ruff founded the San Diego Brain Injury Foundation that established a support network for patients and their families and 15 years as Director of Neurobehavioral Rehabilitation at San Francisco’s St. Mary’s Medical Center.

Ruff’s research has been published in 80 prominent professional scientific journal articles and 16 book chapters. His research and expertise have made Ruff a popular speaker at more than 100 national and international conferences.