Santa Fe Institute

Bio

At Los Alamos National Laboratory, Hurd is the former Director of the Lujan Neutron Scattering Center at LANSCE.  Prior to coming to Los Alamos in 2001, he managed various materials research areas at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque and, before joining Sandia in 1984, he was a postdoc studying liquid and colloidal crystals under Buckley Prize Winner Bob Meyer at Brandeis University.  He taught physics at Brandeis and is an Adjunct Professor of physics at the University of New Mexico.

Hurd’s degrees are in physics from the Colorado School of Mines and the University of Colorado.  Hurd studied light scattering from colloidal crystals at CU under Bill O’Sullivan and Buckley Prize Winner Noel Clark. His research interests include neutron scattering, fractal materials, biomembranes, complex fluids, and sol-gel ceramics for which Hurd has three awards from DOE’s Basic Energy Sciences for outstanding research.  He has a new interest in the ways that “energy critical elements” constrain society.

Hurd was the President of the Materials Research Society in 2007. He received the 1999 MRS Woody Award, the 2004 MRS Special Recognition Award, the DoD Patriot Award in 2008, and a Citation from the CIA in 2004. Currently he serves as the chair of the MRS Government Affairs Committee and is a member of the American Physical Society’s Committee on International Scientific Affairs.  His 100 publications have been cited over 3400 times and his h factor is 30.

Hurd has served on numerous advisory boards for academic and government institutions including Department of Energy Basic Energy Sciences, National Nuclear Security Agency, National Research Council, National Science Foundation, the National Institute for Standards and Technology, National Research Council, Colorado School of Mines, Brandeis University, New Mexico State University, University of New Mexico, Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organization, China Advanced Research Reactor, University of California, and Japan’s KEK Neutron Scattering Center.