Cherry Murray

Cherry Murray, Professor of Physics at the University of Arizona, is Deputy Director of Research at Biosphere2.

She obtained B.S. and Ph.D. degrees in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  Her research interests evolved from experimental condensed matter and surface physics to nanotechnology, innovation, R&D of telecommunications networks, to science, technology, national security and energy policy, science diplomacy and global sustainable development. 

From 1978 to 2004, Murray held a number of research and executive positions at Bell Laboratories, eventually becoming Senior Vice President for Physical Sciences and Wireless Research.  She then served at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory as Principal Associate Director for Science and Technology from 2004 to 2009.  She was dean of Harvard University’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences from 2009 until 2014.

Murray served as the Director of the US Department of Energy Office of Science, from 2015 until 2017, overseeing $6 billion in competitive scientific research as well as the management of 10 national laboratories. She then became Benjamin Peirce Professor of Technology and Public Policy and Professor of Physics at Harvard until her retirement in 2019.

A member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, treasurer and past co-chair of the InterAcademy Partnership, and co-chair of the United Nations 10-Member Group in support of the Technology Facilitation Mechanism, Murray has received the US National Medal of Technology and Innovation as well as the American Physical Society Maria Goeppert-Mayer Award and George E. Pake Prize.  She is co-chair of the National Academy of Sciences Report Review Committee, a member of the Board and Council of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Chair of the Board of Governors of Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University.