David Arthur Shirley (March 30, 1934 – March 29, 2021) was an American chemist, best known as the fourth director of the
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), commonly referred to as the Berkeley Lab, is a United States national laboratory that is owned by, and conducts scientific research on behalf of, the United States Department of Energy. Located in ...
from 1980 to 1989, and for spearheading the funding and creation of the
Advanced Light Source.
Biography
David Arthur Shirley was born in
North Conway, New Hampshire
North Conway is a census-designated place
A census-designated place (CDP) is a concentration of population defined by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes only.
CDPs have been used in each decennial census since 1980 as t ...
, on March 30, 1934.
He earned a
Bachelor of Science
A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years.
The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University ...
degree in
chemistry
Chemistry is the scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a natural science that covers the elements that make up matter to the compounds made of atoms, molecules and ions: their composition, structure, propertie ...
from the
University of Maine
The University of Maine (UMaine or UMO) is a public land-grant research university in Orono, Maine. It was established in 1865 as the land-grant college of Maine and is the flagship university of the University of Maine System. It is classif ...
in 1955,
and then entered the
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
, where he completed his
PhD PHD or PhD may refer to:
* Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification
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, writing his 1959 doctoral thesis on "The heat capacities and entropies of iodine and lithium chloride from 15 to 325 degrees Kelvin", under the supervision of
William Giauque
William Francis Giauque (;''The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia'', 2004. May 12, 1895 – March 28, 1982) was a Canadian-born American chemist and Nobel laureate recognized in 1949 for his studies in the properties of matter at temperatures cl ...
.
Shirley married Virginia Schultz in 1956, and they had five children together, David, Diane, Michael, Eric and Gail Shirley. Shirley has a total of eleven grandchildren, Brian, Arthur, Kevin, Colleen, Sarah, Lauren, Catalina, Wendell, Wilbur, Darian and Madelyn.
Shirley became a lecturer in chemistry at Berkeley in 1959, an
assistant professor
Assistant Professor is an academic rank just below the rank of an associate professor used in universities or colleges, mainly in the United States and Canada.
Overview
This position is generally taken after earning a doctoral degree and gener ...
in 1960, an
associate professor
Associate professor is an academic title with two principal meanings: in the North American system and that of the ''Commonwealth system''.
Overview
In the '' North American system'', used in the United States and many other countries, it is ...
in 1964, and a full
professor
Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professo ...
in 1967. The following year he became chairman of the Chemistry Department.
He was a
National Science Foundation
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National ...
fellow at
Oxford University
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
in 1966–67,
and was awarded the
United States Atomic Energy Commission
The United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was an agency of the United States government established after World War II by U.S. Congress to foster and control the peacetime development of atomic science and technology. President ...
's
Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award in 1972. His early research was into
low temperature physics
In physics, cryogenics is the production and behaviour of materials at very low temperatures.
The 13th IIR International Congress of Refrigeration (held in Washington DC in 1971) endorsed a universal definition of “cryogenics” and “cr ...
,
nuclear orientation, and
hyperfine interactions, particularly the
Mössbauer effect
The Mössbauer effect, or recoilless nuclear resonance fluorescence, is a physical phenomenon discovered by Rudolf Mössbauer in 1958. It involves the resonant and recoil-free emission and absorption of gamma radiation by atomic nuclei bound in ...
, and he was a pioneer of
X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy
X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) is a surface-sensitive quantitative spectroscopic technique based on the photoelectric effect that can identify the elements that exist within a material (elemental composition) or are covering its surface, ...
.
In 1975, Shirley became the Associate Laboratory Director and Head, Materials and Molecular Research Division of the
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), commonly referred to as the Berkeley Lab, is a United States national laboratory that is owned by, and conducts scientific research on behalf of, the United States Department of Energy. Located in ...
.
He was its fourth director, from 1980 to 1989,
and was the first chemist to head the laboratory. He took the helm at a time when the laboratory had to deal with deep funding cuts, and spent most of his first two years in the job managing them. Having weathered the crisis, he attempted to prevent its recurrence by broadening the range of research projects, such as research into treatments for
ocular melanoma, and development of
Mina Bissell's
extracellular matrix
In biology, the extracellular matrix (ECM), also called intercellular matrix, is a three-dimensional network consisting of extracellular macromolecules and minerals, such as collagen, enzymes, glycoproteins and hydroxyapatite that provide ...
model of
breast cancer
Breast cancer is cancer that develops from breast tissue. Signs of breast cancer may include a lump in the breast, a change in breast shape, dimpling of the skin, milk rejection, fluid coming from the nipple, a newly inverted nipple, or a ...
. In 1987, the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory was chosen to participate in the
Human Genome Project
The Human Genome Project (HGP) was an international scientific research project with the goal of determining the base pairs that make up human DNA, and of identifying, mapping and sequencing all of the genes of the human genome from both a ph ...
.
Another initiative was the Center for Advanced Materials (CAM). In turn, this led to the establishment of the Center for X-Ray Optics (CXRO), the world's first research facility devoted to specialise in the use of
soft x-ray
An X-ray, or, much less commonly, X-radiation, is a penetrating form of high-energy electromagnetic radiation. Most X-rays have a wavelength ranging from 10 picometers to 10 nanometers, corresponding to frequencies in the range 30&nb ...
s and
extreme ultraviolet
Extreme ultraviolet radiation (EUV or XUV) or high-energy ultraviolet radiation is electromagnetic radiation in the part of the electromagnetic spectrum spanning wavelengths from 124 nm down to 10 nm, and therefore (by the Planck– ...
light known as XUV. As it turned out, these are ideal for manipulating the atoms and molecules on materials' surfaces, where most chemical reactions take place. In 1984, Shirley proposed the construction of the
Advanced Light Source, a
synchrotron
A synchrotron is a particular type of cyclic particle accelerator, descended from the cyclotron, in which the accelerating particle beam travels around a fixed closed-loop path. The magnetic field which bends the particle beam into its closed ...
optimized to produce XUV. Not everyone saw the value in it, but the scientific case was sound, and Shirley eventually secured $100 million of funding from the
Secretary of Energy
The United States secretary of energy is the head of the United States Department of Energy, a member of the Cabinet of the United States, and fifteenth in the presidential line of succession. The position was created on October 1, 1977, when Pr ...
,
John S. Herrington. It was the first synchrotron to be built at Berkeley in almost thirty years, and was built on the site of
Ernest Lawrence
Ernest Orlando Lawrence (August 8, 1901 – August 27, 1958) was an American nuclear physicist and winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1939 for his invention of the cyclotron. He is known for his work on uranium-isotope separation f ...
's 184-inch synchrotron.
Shirley stepped down as director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory on August 31, 1989,
but remained at Berkeley as a professor. In 1992 he accepted a position as senior vice president for research and graduate education at
Pennsylvania State University
The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a public state-related land-grant research university with campuses and facilities throughout Pennsylvania. Founded in 1855 as the Farmers' High School of Pennsylvania, Penn State bec ...
. He increased the number of minorities in graduate school, and reduced the average time to graduate. Although this was a time when the
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washi ...
was cutting Federal funding for research, he positioned the university so as to make the best of available opportunities, and cemented its place as the premier state university in the country for research funding from industry. He retired at the end of 1996, and returned to California with his second wife, Barbara.
Notes
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Shirley, David Arthur
1934 births
2021 deaths
21st-century American chemists
People from North Conway, New Hampshire
University of California faculty
Pennsylvania State University faculty
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory people
University of Maine alumni
University of California, Berkeley alumni