Vanessa Julia Ruta, Ph.D. is an American neuroscientist known for her work on the structure and function of chemosensory circuits underlying innate and learned behaviors in the fly Drosophila melanogaster. She is the Gabrielle H. Reem and Herbert J. Kayden Associate Professor and Head of the Laboratory of Neurophysiology and Behavior at The Rockefeller University. Ruta is a 2019 MacArthur Fellow. She was one of the six fellows from New York City.