Bruce Alvin Gurney (~1957 - October 2023) was an american physicist responsible for pioneering advances in magnetic recording. In particular, he was central to the development of the giant magnetoresistance (GMR) sensors first used in hard disk drives in 1997.^[1][2]

Gurney received a B.S. in physics from Caltech and an M.S. in physics from Cornell. In 1987, he completed a PhD at Cornell.^[3] From 1987 to 2015, Gurney worked in research and development with IBM and its successors* in San Jose where he focussed primarily on the development of spin-valve sensors for hard disk drives (HDD). (*IBM Hard Drive Division was purchased in 2003 by Hitachi, then subsequently in 2013 by Western Digital)

In 2000, Gurney became a Fellow of the American Physical Society.^[4]

In 2004, Bruce Gurney and Virgil Speriosu received the IEEE_Reynold B. Johnson Information Storage Systems Award for "For key technical contributions to the development of spin valve giant magnetoresistive recording heads for computer data storage devices.".^[5][6]

In 2014, Gurney was named Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)^[7] for contributions to spin valve Giant Magnetoresistance (GMR) sensors for magnetic recording systems.

In 2019, Gurney, together with Virgil Speriosu, Bernard Dieny, and Mustafa Pinarbasi participated in an oral history conducted by Christopher Bajorek on the "Invention, Development and Commercialization of GMR Heads" at the Computer History Museum, Mountain View, California.^[8][9]

Gurney has authored or coauthored numerous scientific publications^[10] and patents^[11]. Most of the research focussed on nanotechnology and on read sensors and media for magnetic recording.

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