Bruce Alvin Gurney (8 July 1957 – 20 October 2023) was an American physicist responsible for pioneering advances in magnetic recording.

[9] In 1991, Gurney moved to the IBM Almaden Research Center where he oversaw the transfer of spin-valve technology into development and into manufacturing.

Gurney continued to lead research efforts on advanced read heads as the IBM HDD division was purchased first by Hitachi in 2003 then subsequently coming under Western Digital in 2013.

[15][16] In 2014, Gurney was named Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)[17] for "contributions to spin valve Giant Magnetoresistance (GMR) sensors for magnetic recording systems".

In particular, he chaired the 2016 joint MMM-Intermag Conference in San Diego[18] 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.