James Hurley, PhD, is a professor of molecular and cell biology at the University of California at Berkeley. He is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He obtained his PhD in biophysics at UCSF and was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Oregon. He led a group in the NIH intramural program from 1992 to 2013, before moving to UC Berkeley. He is a leading structural biologist in the fields of autophagy and the endolysosomal system. Using crystallography, single particle EM, cryo-EM prediction tools and reconstitutions of autophagy, he has made many contributions to understanding the molecular gymnastics of the core complexes during mitophagy initiation and the expansion of the engulfing phagophore membrane. A major focus in his lab is converting insights from structural biology and biochemistry of the autophagic and endolysosomal pathways into therapies for neurodegenerative diseases.