Born in Munich, Rudolf moved to Italy to complete high school and to receive her MSc degree (magna cum laude) in physics at the Sapienza University of Rome, Italy. Following, she worked at the National Surface Science Laboratory in Trieste for five years, interrupted two times to work on the newly discovered fullerenes at Bell Labs, USA. In 1995, she received her PhD (magna cum laude) in physics under the supervision of Roland Caudano at Facultés Universitaires Notre-Dame de la Paix, Namur, Belgium. After several research positions in Namur, she became professor in Experimental Solid State Physics at the University of Groningen in 2003.