Margaret Murnane

Margaret Mary Murnane NAS AAA&S (born 23

January 1959) is an Irish physicist, who served as a Margaret M. Murnane
distinguished professor of Physics at the University of Born January 23, 1959
Colorado Boulder, having moved there in 1999, with County Limerick, Ireland
past positions at the University of Michigan and Alma mater University College Cork (B.S., 1981
Washington State University. She is currently Director M.S., 1983)
of the STROBE NSF Science and Technology Center University of California at
(https://strobe.colorado.edu) and is among the foremost Berkeley (Ph.D., 1989)
active researchers in laser science and technology.
Known for Founder of the field of ultrafast x-
Her interests and research contributions span topics ray science
KMLabs Co-founder
including atomic, molecular, and optical physics,
nanoscience, laser technology, materials and chemical Spouse Physicist Henry Kapteyn
dynamics, plasma physics, and imaging science. Her Scientific career
work has earned her multiple awards[1][2][3] including Fields Physics
the MacArthur Fellowship award in 2000, the Frederic
Institutions University of California, Berkeley
Ives Medal/Quinn Prize in 2017, the highest award of
(1989–1990)
The Optical Society, and the 2021 Benjamin Franklin
Washington State University
Medal in Physics.
(1990–1995)
University of Michigan (1996–1999)
University of Colorado Boulder
Early life (1999 – present)

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 M.S. from University College, Cork.[3] She moved to the United States to study at the University of
California, Berkeley, where she earned her PhD in 1989 under Roger Falcone.[4] She is married to
physics professor Henry Kapteyn. They work together and operate their own lab at JILA at the University
of Colorado.[5]

Career
Murnane has co-authored more than 500 articles in peer reviewed journals, with her work receiving
around 35000 citations.[6] Dr. Murnane is a founder of the field of ultrafast X-ray science, having made
transformational contributions to this area of research in every decade since the 1980s. She is also
currently one of the most-accomplished woman laboratory experimental physicists in the U.S., further
distinguished by having independently developed her university-based laboratory effort with Prof.
Kapteyn.[7]
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, make it possible to
record the motions of atoms in chemical reactions, and of atoms and electrons in materials systems. Some
of her lasers can generate pulses of less than 10 femtoseconds.[8] The very high peak power of these
ultrashort laser pulses makes it possible to coherently upconvert light to much shorter wavelengths, in the
extreme ultraviolet and soft X-ray region of the spectrum. This high harmonic generation process makes
possible for the first time a tabletop-scale X-ray laser light source.

Prof. Murnane was the first to explore the use of femtosecond lasers for x-ray generation, and has made
substantive pioneering contributions to many aspects of this area of research, including the science and
fundamental understanding of the high harmonic process, the laser technology required to use this
process to implement practical tabletop light sources for applications, and in applying this new source to
make fundamental discoveries in areas ranging from basic atomic and chemical dynamics, to materials
dynamics, to nanoimaging. She is also a founder the area now known as experimental "Attosecond
Science", having performed foundational experiments that for the first time clearly demonstrated the
ability to manipulate electron dynamics with attosecond precision.[9]

She is also the co-founder of the laser company KMLabs, Inc.,[10] for which Intel Capital is a co-
investor,[11] and which has commercialized these technologies for research and possible industrial
applications in nanometrology.

Honours
1977–1981 College Scholarship, University College Cork, Ireland
1983 Pfizer Postgraduate Scholarship, Pfizer Chemical, Ireland
1983 University Fellowship, University of California at Berkeley
1984 Regents Fellowship, University of California at Berkeley
1989 University of California President's Postdoctoral Fellowship
1990 Marshall N. Rosenbluth Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Award of the American Physical
Society[2]
1991 Presidential Young Investigator Award of the National Science Foundation
1992 Sloan Foundation Fellowship
1993 Presidential Faculty Fellowship of the National Science Foundation
1997 Maria Goeppert-Mayer Award of the American Physical Society[3]
1998 Fellow of The Optical Society
2000 John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellow
2001 Loeb Lecturer, Harvard University
2001 Fellow of the American Physical Society
2003 Richtmyer Memorial Award Lecturer of the American Association of Physics Teachers
2003 Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
2004 Member of the National Academy of Sciences[1]
2005 Distinguished Alumnus Award, University College Cork (Ireland)
2006 Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences[12]
2007 Fellow of the Association for Women in Science[13]
2010 Arthur L. Schawlow Prize in Laser Science
 2010 R. W. Wood Prize, The Optical Society[14]
2011 Boyle Medal[15]
2012 Willis E. Lamb Award for Laser Science and Quantum Optics[16]
2015 Honorary doctorate from Trinity College Dublin[17]
2015 Member of the American Philosophical Society
2016 honorary doctorate from the Faculty of Science and Technology at Uppsala University,
Sweden[18]
2017 Frederic Ives Medal/Quinn Prize in optics from The Optical Society[19]
2021 Benjamin Franklin Medal (Franklin Institute) in Physics.[20]
2022 Isaac Newton Medal, from Institute of Physics (UK)
2023 honorary doctorate from the University of Salamanca, Spain

References
1. "Murnane, Margaret M." (http://www.nasonline.org/site/Dir/642697330?pg=vprof&mbr=1004
375) National Academy of Sciences. Retrieved 16 April 2011.
2. "1990 Marshall N. Rosenbluth Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Award Recipient" (http://www.ap
s.org/programs/honors/prizes/prizerecipient.cfm?last_nm=Murnane&first_nm=Margaret&yea
r=1990). American Physical Society. Retrieved 16 April 2011.
3. "1997 Maria Goeppert Mayer Award Recipient" (http://www.aps.org/programs/honors/prizes/
prizerecipient.cfm?last_nm=Murnane&first_nm=Margaret&year=1997). American Physical
Society. Retrieved 16 April 2011.
4. Zierler, David (8 April 2022). "Margaret Murnane" (https://www.aip.org/history-programs/niels
-bohr-library/oral-histories/47194). Oral History Interviews. Retrieved 1 October 2023.
5. Davis, T. H. (2006). "Profile of Margaret M. Murnane" (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti
cles/PMC1569154). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 103 (36): 13276–
13278. Bibcode:2006PNAS..10313276D (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2006PNAS..103
13276D). doi:10.1073/pnas.0606322103 (https://doi.org/10.1073%2Fpnas.0606322103).
PMC 1569154 (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1569154). PMID 16938855
(https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16938855).
6. "Margaret Murnane Google Scholar profile" (https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=fbL5
uSAAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao). University of Colorado at Boulder. Retrieved 1 October 2018.
7. This can be determined through a survey and literature search for current members of the
National Academy of Sciences, as well as recipients of the Franklin Institute Awards.
8. Optics Letters 19(15), 1149–1151 (1994).
9. Physical Review A 58(1), R30-R33 (1998); Nature 406(6792), 164–166 (2000).
dx.doi.org/10.1038/35018029
10. "Home" (https://www.kmlabs.com).
11. "Intel backs KMLabs' ultrafast laser development" (http://optics.org/news/6/11/8).
12. "Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter M" (http://www.amacad.org/publications/BookofMe
mbers/ChapterM.pdf) (PDF). American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved 16 April
2011.
13. "CU Professor Margaret Murnane Honored By National Women's Science Organization" (htt
ps://web.archive.org/web/20070317171142/http://www.colorado.edu/news/releases/2007/10
3.html). University of Colorado at Boulder. Archived from the original (http://www.colorado.e
du/news/releases/2007/103.html) on 17 March 2007. Retrieved 1 November 2007.
14. "R. W. Wood Prize" (https://www.osa.org/en-us/awards_and_grants/awards/award_descripti
on/rwwood/). The Optical Society. Retrieved 10 May 2020.
15. Boyle Medal Laureates (https://www.rds.ie/Ireland-s-Philanthropic-Society/Our-Work/Project
s/RDS-Irish-Times-Boyle-Medal-for-Scientific-Excelle/Boyle-Medal-Laureates) Royal Dublin
Society
16. "The 2013 Willis E. Lamb Award for Laser Science and Quantum Optics: Margaret M.
Murnane" (https://www.lambaward.org/2012/2012-murnane.html). The Willis E. Lamb Award
for Laser Science and Quantum Optics. Retrieved 13 July 2020.
17. "Registrar : Trinity College Dublin, the University of Dublin, Ireland" (https://www.tcd.ie/regist
rar/honorary-degrees/2014-15/). www.tcd.ie. Retrieved 7 January 2020.
18. "Three new honorary doctorates in Science and Technology – Uppsala University, Sweden"
(http://www.uu.se/en/research/grants-awards/article/?id=5398&area=2,5,12,16&typ=artikel&l
ang=en). uu.se. Retrieved 2 February 2016.
19. "Professor Margaret Murnane Wins Highest Medal from The Optical Society" (https://www.c
olorado.edu/physics/2017/02/20/professor-margaret-murnane-wins-highest-medal-optical-so
ciety). Physics. 20 February 2017. Retrieved 22 April 2018.
20. "Margaret M. Murnane" (https://www.fi.edu/laureates/margaret-murnane). 25 January 2020.

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Margaret_Murnane&oldid=1260449133"