Boris Shraiman, honored as the Susan F. Gurley Professor in Theoretical Physics and Biology, is currently a Permanent Member of the Kavli institute for theoretical Physics, and a Professor in the Department of Physics. Dr. Shraiman received his Ph.D. degree in physics from Harvard University in 1983 and after two years as a James Franck postdoctoral fellow at the University of Chicago, moved to Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, where in 1987 he became a Member of the technical staff in the Theoretical Physics Research Department. Before joining KITP, Dr. Shraiman also was a faculty member in the Physics Department and the BioMaPs institute at Rutgers University from 2002 to 2004. He was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 1997. Dr. Shraiman has broad research interests and has made significant contributions in a number of fields ranging from correlated electron systems to pattern formation and turbulence. His recent and current research uses physics ideas and approaches to study biological systems.

Gus Gurley has a B.S. degree in Physics and a M.S., Physics, scientific instrumentation from the University of California at Santa Barbara. in 1987 Mr. Gurley co-founded the local high-tech company, Digital instruments (DI) with former UC Santa Barbara Professor Virgil Elings. DI pioneered scanning probe microscopy with a simple goal to make the power of scanning probe microscopy readily available to scientists and engineers, enabling them to image and explore nanoscale features and structures never seen before. that same year, they constructed the first commercially successful scanning tunneling microscope, shipping the first nanoscope units. Gus designed the nanoscope electronics and software. He managed new product development at DI, and is author or co-author on numerous patents concerning scanning probe control systems. Prior to his work at DI, he designed flight simulators for Link flight simulation. DI received numerous awards for business and engineering excellence. in 1998, Digital instruments officially merged with Veeco instruments, combining the technological strengths of each company and adding the distinction to the newly formed company of being the world leader in 3-D surface metrology. since retiring from DI/Veeco, Gus has been exploring his interest in large-scale neural networks. A number of former DI employees have started companies employing scanning probe technology including Asylum research, Affinity Biosensors and Multiprobe.