Harvard dean of engineering, applied sciences speaks at UNC

As a child, Cherry Murray sought to become an artist.

But as a freshman in a sophomore accelerated chemistry class in high school, her dreams turned toward science.

“I really enjoyed the realization that mathematics could explain the real world” she said.

When, after teaching herself physics in Seoul, South Korea, Murray decided to apply to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, her brother told her it would be impossible.

“I went to MIT and got a Ph.D. in physics just to show him that I could do it” she said.

Now the dean of the Harvard University School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Murray has had the last laugh.

On Wednesday, Murray spoke at UNC to dispel some of the stereotypes her brother thought to be true. And she offered living proof that the stereotypes that dissuade women from science are flatly untrue.

“Women are underrepresented in most areas of science at Carolina,” said Dee Reid, director of communications for the UNC College of Arts and Sciences.

“I hope students benefit from hearing from a leading woman in science.”

Murray’s lecture, titled “Life in the Fast Lane — from art to science to engineering,” focused on her beginnings in science and what she encountered during her career.

Murray’s lecture was co-sponsored by UNC’s Working on Women in Science initiative, the College of Arts and Sciences, women’s studies department and physics and astronomy departments.

When asked at the lecture why she thinks women are underrepresented in the sciences, she blamed it on social stereotypes.

“I think it’s cultural, but that’s only my hypothesis,” she said.

Murray began her career in science at Bell Laboratories in 1978. She became the vice president of physical sciences research in 1997, and the senior vice president in 2000.

In 2004, she became the deputy director for science and technology at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and, in 2007, was named principal associate director.

And in 2009, she got a call from Harvard University asking her to become the dean of the newest Harvard school in 70 years, the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, which she accepted despite her lack of a background in the academic world.

Sophomore English major Jessica Kubusch said she attended the lecture because she wanted to hear the story of a distinguished female scientist.

“She just did what she wanted to, and that’s great,” she said.

Since her family moved to several different countries when she was young, Murray said she was “blissfully ignorant” that it might be difficult for a woman to break into the scientific fields.

She said she never really considered her gender as an obstacle.

“I was incredibly lucky, or extremely thick-skinned, probably both.”

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