OLLSCOIL na hÉIREANN
NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF IRELAND
TEXT OF THE INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS DELIVERED BY:
DR MICHAEL MURPHY, President, University College Cork on 2 December
2015 in the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, on the occasion of the
conferring of the Degree of Doctor of Science, honoris causa, on PROFESSOR
MARGARET MURNANE
A Sheansailéir, a mhuintir na hOllscoile agus a dhaoine uaisle,
Home
From an auspicious start, Professor Margaret Murnane, Distinguished
Professor of Physics, University of Colorado, one of the leading optical
physicists of her generation and elected member of the US National
Academy of Sciences, was conferred as a Fellow of the American
Philosophical Society in 2015.
Margaret (or Mairead) was born in rural County Limerick, in 1959. Growing
up in Castleconnell, she attended An Mhodhscoil Naisunta, followed by
Laurel Hill Secondary School. She recalls how she was inspired by the
beauty of the natural world surrounding her on the banks of the Shannon.
Margaret attributes the foundations of her journey to becoming a worldrenowned scientist on ultrafast lasers to her father, a primary school teacher.
She remembers vividly how he loved science, in particular Botany. Mr
Murnane used to reward his young daughter with chocolates or a new
science book from the library whenever she solved maths puzzles. At the age
of nine, Margaret was given a book by her parents which told the story of
King Heiro and Archimedes, with illustrations of the bathtub experiments!
This she found inspiring, as it awakened in her the reality that science was
not just about facts, it was about discovery, and fun! And so, Margaret was
enticed into the realm of wonderment of science and discovery, and decided
at the age of nine that she wanted to be a scientist, though admitting that she
had never met one!
UCC
Margaret entered UCC as an undergraduate in October 1977, where she was
a scholarship student, registering for a Bachelor of Science degree. She
graduated from UCC with a BSc in Experimental Physics in 1981 and an
MSc in Experimental Physics in 1983. Much of Margaret’s early
experimental success may be attributed to the influence of Professor Frank
Fahy and his colleagues at UCC in the 1970s. Fahy’s department, renowned
for its rigor, its demand for excellence, spawned an extraordinary cadre of
graduates who have exerted global influence. Exemplars include Seamus
Davis, Professor of Physics at Cornell and winner of the Fritz London Prize
for Physics; Richard Milner, Professor of Nuclear Physics and Director of
the MIT laboratory of nuclear physics. Margaret remembers examinations in
UCC, referred to as “unseen” experiments: undergraduates were “in a room
by oneself,” she says, to perform an experiment while examiners watched
from behind closed doors. Despite the challenging curriculum, Margaret’s
professors were highly supportive. Mike Mansfield in particular inspired her
attention to the beauty of light, and she undertook her Masters with him. She
was encouraged to apply to doctoral programmes in the United States.
Margaret has said that the notion that she would be “paid for doing science
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–was very exciting news at the time”.
Margaret further stated recently “…I am certain that I would not be where I
am today without the love for learning instilled through the strong education
I received in Ireland through my primary, secondary and University years. It
is undoubtedly this foundation which has given me the confidence to go out
and put my stamp on the world.”
Berkeley
Professor Fahy’s own son Stephen, a contemporary of Margaret’s, went to
the University of California, Berkeley for his doctoral studies just ahead of
Margaret (Stephen returned to Ireland from Berkeley in 1993, as a Professor
of Physics at UCC).
Margaret, encouraged by Stephen (who wrote to her “Mairead, you must
come to graduate school in Berkeley. The rain falls straight down and
umbrellas work!), was awarded a scholarship and began her research career
at Berkeley, where she worked in the experimental laser laboratory of a
young professor, Roger Falcone.
For her doctoral thesis, Margaret built an intense laser that shrank the
duration of the pulse to ≈100 fs (10−13 s), shorter than the explosion time of a
solid. Margaret recalls these experiments as a long and challenging
undertaking, taking her a year to build the laser (which apparently involved a
lot of building and plumbing work), 6 months to refine it (after which
Margaret was convinced that she didn’t want to be a plumber!), and two
years to show that it generated fast x-ray pulses. Margaret’s ultra-short
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lasers, emitting fast pulses that act like a strobe light, capable of freezing the
motion of some of the fastest processes in nature, proved powerful in the
study of chemical bonding, if the lasers produced x-rays instead of visible
wavelengths of light.
Margaret graduated with her Ph.D. in physics in 1989, and in 1990 she
received the Simon Ramo Award from the American Physical Society for
her thesis. While at Berkeley, Margaret met her future husband and lifelong
collaborator, Henry Kapteyn, also a Ph.D. student on the programme. (At the
time, Henry commented that it was “just as well that the laser worked as
you can’t cook or sew!”). Margaret and Henry married in 1988 and moved
to Washington State University (Pullman, WA) in 1990 where they set up a
joint laboratory. After several years as Associate Professor of Physics at
Washington State, Margaret moved to University of Michigan Ann Arbor in
1996, where she remained as Professor until 1999.
Colorado and current research
Margaret Murnane has been a Professor in the University of Colorado
(Department of Physics and Electrical and Computer Engineering), since
August 1999, where she is now a Distinguished Professor.
Her ground-breaking work in generating brighter x-ray beams with shorter
wavelengths has transformed the field of ultrafast laser and x-ray science.
She designed the first laser capable of pulsing in the low trillionths of a
second range. She built a laser that flashed for ten quadrillionths of a second
- the fastest that anyone has ever created. Some of her lasers can generate
pulses of less than 12 femtoseconds. Margaret also has pioneered the use of
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lasers to study physical processes on timescales shorter than femtoseconds,
i.e., attoseconds. Margaret’s work opens up new applications in
understanding molecular function, cellular tomography, nanoimaging,
catalysis, and real-time molecular motion.
Honours
Margaret has received numerous awards and accolades throughout the
course of her career. In 1997 she was awarded the Maria Goeppert-Mayer
Award of the American Physical Society, of which she is a Fellow; in 1998
she was elected a Fellow of the Optical Society of America. In 2000 she was
named a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellow; in 2004 she was
elected to the National Academy of Sciences, and in 2006 she was elected a
Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. As joint recipient of
the Lamb Award (2012), Margaret and Henry also shared the 2009 Ahmed
Zewail Award of the American Chemical Society, the 2010 Arthur
Schawlow Prize in Laser Science of the American Physical Society, and the
2010 R.W. Wood Prize of the Optical Society of America. Here in Ireland,
Margaret was awarded the RDS Boyle Medal in 2011 (only the second
female recipient, after Phyllis Clinch in 1961), was elected an Honorary
Member of the RIA (2013), as well as receiving honorary doctorates from
both TCD and UCD in 2015. She has chaired the White House Committee to
select the annual Presidential Science Medalist.
Diversity and role model
Margaret’s secondary school was one of the few girls’ schools in Ireland at
the time that taught physics; Margaret is quoted as saying “I didn’t see a
female physics professor until I was in grad school”.
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Now a role model for female physicists all over the world, Margaret has
chaired the American Physical Society Committee on the Status of Women
in Physics. Notwithstanding her busy international career, Margaret retains a
strong commitment to Ireland, including external examinerships for physics
degrees in Irish universities, where she is well known for providing
encouragement to early-stage female physicists.
Chancellor I have the honour to present to you for Honorary Doctorate in
Science from the National University of Ireland, Margaret Murnane,
Bachelor and Masters Graduate of the University, now a world renowned
scientist in the field of ultrafast laser physics and x-ray science.
PRAEHONORABILIS CANCELLARIE, TOTAQUE UNIVERSITAS:
Presento vobis hunc meam filiam, quem scio tam moribus quam
doctrina, habilem et idoneam esse quae admittatur, honoris causa, ad
gradum Doctoratus Scientiae, idque tibi fide mea testor ac spondeo,
totique Academiae.
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