Cherry Murray, deputy director, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, California

Managing scientists is often described as “herding cats”, says physicist Cherry Murray. That's why she was initially reluctant to pursue her first opportunity to head a team of scientists when it was offered to her at Bell Labs in Murray Hill, New Jersey, almost 20 years ago. (see CV).

“I wasn't expecting to become a manager, but my department head left,” Murray says. “I was having such a great time doing science, but I realized I had an opportunity to make decisions and I thought that was important.” Murray's research focuses on experiments at low temperatures, with an emphasis on light scattering and imaging.

As deputy director for science and technology at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, Murray will now have to discern what's going on in the minds of many scientists. She supervised a few hundred at Bell Labs; at her new post she will oversee several thousand. “Learning what's going on here is my biggest challenge because it's so huge,” she says of Livermore.

At Murray Hill, Murray led a scientific-leadership training programme. She envisions creating a similar project at her new institution. “At Livermore, I'd like to continue to teach management,” she says.

Looking back, Murray realizes that she learned one of her most important career lessons when she was a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology: be a good mentor. Mildred Dresselhaus, a professor at the institute and someone Murray admired, set up a mentoring series for graduate students, which saw them take turns presenting research seminars. That provided Murray with a ‘safe’ place to learn how to discuss her research and give talks.

As her career progressed, Murray came to understand one of a mentor's most important roles. “Some people have a hard time getting out of certain habits,” Murray says. A good mentor is able tactfully to point out those habits and then help the person find a way to overcome them.

That can be a delicate balancing act, Murray says. Scientists enjoy autonomy and problem solving. “They don't want to be told what to do,” she notes. But at Livermore, she hopes to rally scientists around crucial problems, such as nuclear security. Focusing scientists on common problems like that will be much easier than herding cats.