LAWRENCE RAY GURLEY April 19, 2017Lawrence Ray Gurley, age 82, died at home April 19, 2017 in Sarasota, Florida.
The family moved to Los Alamos in 1964 when Lawrence joined the old H-Division as a Scientific Staff Member. Lawrence enjoyed a distinguished, fulfilling career at LANL,
collaborating with numerous colleagues and mentoring high school, undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral students. Lawrence was selected as a Los Alamos National Laboratory Fellow in recognition of his pioneering discoveries pertaining to histone phosphorylation during the growth cycle. Subsequently, he also served the Laboratory as Acting Division Leader of the Life Sciences Division for several months during a change of division leadership.
Lawrence was a graduate of North Carolina State University where he earned two degrees in Chemical Engineering; later he attended the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, earning a Ph.D. in Biochemistry.
Following his career at Los Alamos he was active in mission work helping to build a school in Kenya, teaching in Haiti and facilitating water projects in Kenya and Haiti.
Lawrence enjoyed many hobbies and continued to research areas of interest in science and psychology. He loved his family, friends, nature, the church and was a backyard birdwatcher.
He was predeceased by his parents, Wilton Ralph Gurley and Ada Coor Gurley and one sister, Justine Gurley Martin of Goldsboro, N.C. He married Mary Hults Gurley. They have two children, Laura Gurley Lunsford, married to Larry Lunsford and David Lawrence Gurley married to Valerie Gurley.
In lieu of flowers the family requests donations to the American Cancer Society.
