David A. Shirley

David Arthur Shirley (March 30, 1934 – March 29, 2021) was an American chemist, best known as the fourth director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory from 1980 to 1989, and for spearheading the funding and creation of the Advanced Light Source.

Biography David Arthur Shirley was born in North Conway, New Hampshire, on March 30, 1934. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry from the University of Maine in 1955, and then entered the University of California, Berkeley, where he completed his PhD, writing his 1959 doctoral thesis on "The heat capacities and entropies of iodine and lithium chloride from 15 to 325 degrees Kelvin", under the supervision of William Giauque.

Shirley became a lecturer in chemistry at Berkeley in 1959, an assistant professor in 1960, an associate professor in 1964, and a full professor in 1967. The following year he became chairman of the Chemistry Department.

Shirley stepped down as director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory on August 31, 1989,