Since 1984, Rudolf Albrecht has occupied various positions (data analysis group leader, deputy head, and later head/ST-ECF, now senior scientist) at the ESA/ESO Space Telescope European Coordinating Facility in Garching, Germany.

From 1972 to 1981, he was assistant professor at the Institute for Astronomy in Vienna. During this period Albrecht worked with numerous international collaborations, among them at ESO (Chile), Cerro Tololo (Chile), Mauna Kea (Hawaii, US), and DTM (Washington, DC, US). From 1976 to 1993, he was a member of the Investigation Definition Teams for the Faint Object Camera (the ESA contribution to the Hubble Space Telescope). He also headed Scientific Data Processing at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland (1981–1984).

Albrecht holds a Ph.D. in astronomy and physics from the University of Vienna, Austria. In 1970–1971 he was a postdoctoral fellow at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona.

• Austria joins the European Southern Observatory – ad Astra per Aspera (July 1, 2008)