Biography

Dr. Murphy is the Company Founder and has lead Luna as President, Chief Executive Officer, Treasurer and Chairman of the Board since 1992. Dr. Murphy is a founding member of the Virginia Research and Technology Advisory Commission (VRTAC) appointed by the Governor. He is also a member of the Northern Virginia Technology Council (NVTC) Board of Directors, the Greater Washington Board of Trade Virtual Incubator Action Committee, the National Research Council and the National Academies’ SBIR Steering Committee and the Potomac Task Force. Dr. Murphy is the Founder and the President of The Accelerating Innovation Foundation, a non-profit organization whose goal is to promote and facilitate development of a technology innovation cluster in the mid-Atlantic region (www.acceleratinginnovation.org). In 2001, Dr. Murphy was named Small Business Innovation Research Entrepreneur of the Year and in 2004 he was recognized by the Governor and Science Museum of Virginia as Virginia’s Outstanding Industrialist of the Year. He is a former tenured professor in Virginia Tech's Bradley Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering and has more than 200 publications, 40 journal papers and 35 patents in the areas of telecommunications, sensing for oil and gas and aerospace, diagnostics for pharmaceuticals and medical devices. Dr. Murphy began work in fiber optics with ITT in 1978, and received multiple U.S. and international patents for fiber optic couplers. He received his master's and doctoral degrees in Electrical Engineering from Virginia Tech. His bachelor's degree is in Electrical Engineering and Mechanics is also from Virginia Tech. Dr. Murphy is not related to Edward G. Murphy, M.D., a member of Luna’s Board of Directors.