Margaret Murnane is a Fellow of JILA and OSA and a faculty member in Physics at the University of Colorado. She runs a trans-disciplinary research group with her husband, Henry Kapteyn. She received her B.S and M.S. degrees from University College Cork, Ireland, and her Ph.D. from UC Berkeley. She joined the faculty at Washington State University in 1990. In 1996, she moved to the University of Michigan and in 1999 to the University of Colorado. Henry and Margaret also co-founded KMLabs, the first laser company to commercially offer 10fs Ti:sapphire lasers as well as coherent high harmonic systems.

She has served on the Society's Board of Directors and Strategic Planning Council. She has been active in several topical meeting program committees, the Frontiers in Optics Program Committee, and was an editor for Optics Letters. She was awarded the 2017 Frederic Ives Medal and the 2010 R.W. Wood Prize.