Margaret Murnane

Margaret Mary Murnane (born 1959) is an Irish physicist. A professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder since 1999. her interests are within Atomic, molecular, and optical physics, and Nanoscience. Her work with lasers has earned her multiple awards^[1][2][3] including the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship award in 2000.

Early life

Born and raised in County Limerick, Ireland, Murnane became interested in physics through her father who was a primary school teacher. She received her B.A. and B.S. from University College, Cork.^[3] She moved to the United States to study at the University of California at Berkeley where she earned her Ph.D in 1989. She is married to Prof. Henry Kapteyn, a physicist in his own right. They work together and operate their own lab at JILA at the University of Colorado.^[4]

Work

Murnane has written or co-written approximately 130 publications in peer reviewed journals, with an average of 42 citations per paper. She built a laser that flashed for ten quadrillionths of a second - the fastest that any human being has ever created. In their lab, Murnane, Kapteyn, and their students make lasers whose beams flash like a strobe light - except that each flash is a trillion times faster. These lasers, like camera flashes, shine a light that lets them record the motions of atoms in chemical reactions. Some of her lasers can generate pulses of less than 12 femtoseconds.^[5]

Honors

• 2011 Boyle Medal^[6]
• 2007 Fellow of the Association for Women in Science^[7]
• 2006 Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences^[8]
• 2005 Distinguished Alumnus Award, University College Cork (Ireland)
• 2004 Member of the National Academy of Sciences^[1]
• 2003 Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
• 2003 Richtmyer Memorial Award Lecturer of the American Association of Physics Teachers
• 2001 Fellow of the American Physical Society
• 2001 Loeb Lecturer, Harvard University
• 2000 John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellow
• 1998 Fellow of the Optical Society of America
• 1997 Maria Goeppert-Mayer Award of the American Physical Society^[3]
• 1993 Presidential Faculty Fellowship of the National Science Foundation
• 1992 Sloan Foundation Fellowship
• 1991 Presidential Young Investigator Award of the National Science Foundation
• 1990 Marshall N. Rosenbluth Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Award of the American Physical Society^[2]
• 1989 University of California President's Postdoctoral Fellowship
• 1984 Regents Fellowship, University of California at Berkeley
• 1983 University Fellowship, University of California at Berkeley
• 1983 Pfizer Postgraduate Scholarship, Pfizer Chemical, Ireland
• 1977-1981 College Scholarship, University College Cork, Ireland

References