Rurali obtained his PhD at the end of 2003 at the Centro Nacional de Micorelectrónica (CNM-CSIC) in Barcelona, Spain, with a Thesis on the theoretical modelling of defects in silicon carbide. After that, he moved to the Université Paul Sabatier (UPS) in Toulouse, France, to join the group led by Prof. Nicolás Lorente where he worked on surface science related topics, such as the adsorption and self-assembly of organic molecule at metal surfaces or the simulation of scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy, from 2004 to 2005.

His interest in semiconducting nanowires dates back to that time, when it was natural to combine his pre-doctoral background in semiconductor and his post-doctoral activity in surface science.

In 2006 he moved back to Spain to join the group of Computational Nanoelectronics lead by prof. Jordi Suñé at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), whose research topics are the simulation and modeling of emerging devices. He was hired to increase and expand the group's theoretical expertise, by starting an activity in ab initio modeling, focusing on semiconductor nanowires as candidate materials for emerging nanoelectronic devices.

He obtained a research position as staff scientist at the Institut de Ciència de Materials de Barcelona (ICMAB-CSIC), where he has been working to date. There, he joined the department of Theory and simulation of materials where he started his own research line in semiconducting nanowires and other reduced dimensionality nanostructures.

Currently, his research activity is focused on nanoscale thermal transport.