Bruce A. Gurney

Biography

Dr. Virgil S. Speriosu and Dr. Bruce A. Gurney collaborated on the development of the spin valve while at IBM's Almaden Research Center in San Jose, California. A practical giant-magnetoresistive (GMR) readback sensor, the spin valve has phenomenally extended the capacity and performance of disk drives. Since its commercial introduction in a hard drive in 1997, it has displaced all other detection systems for high-density magnetic disk storage, and related technology is used in all disk drives manufactured today. The resulting increases in data storage capacity have been essential to the establishment and growth of the Internet.

Dr. Gurney worked at IBM's Almaden Research Center from 1987 to 2002, serving as staff engineer/scientist, advisory engineer/scientist for the storage systems product division, research staff member and finally manager of the thin film magnetism group.

An IEEE Member, he served on the IEEE Magnetics Society Advisory Committee. A Fellow of the American Physical Society and recipient of the IBM Corporation Outstanding Technical Achievement Award, he authored more than three-dozen papers on magnetic recording technologies and holds more than twenty-five patents. Dr. Gurney managed the recording head and nanostructure materials group at the San Jose Research Center of Hitachi Global Storage Technologies.