In 2011, after passing her artistic aptitude test, Elisa moved from Berlin to Weimar to study art education at the Bauhaus University Weimar and biology, ethics, philosophy, and educational sciences at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena. She graduated with honors in October 2021, two children richer, with her first state examination for teaching at secondary schools.
During her studies, Elisa Rufenach-Ruthenberg supported teaching with tutorials at both the Bauhaus University Weimar and the Friedrich Schiller University Jena. Outside of university, she devoted herself to environmental education, education for sustainable development, and global learning by designing and conducting project days in school and extracurricular institutions as a speaker (at JUBiTh, mohio e.V., and EWNT Jena).
Since March 2022, she has been a research assistant and, since April 2023, a doctoral student at the Chair of Art and its Didactics in the Faculty of Art and Design at the Bauhaus University Weimar.