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{shortcode-a0fafb3727a5405eac46bd1741f1eafab86bbf7e}ave you ever been walking to class when someone ran past you, their hefty backpack bouncing with every stride? If so, that someone is likely Kenneth “Casey” Murray ’25.
He’s not late to class, and he’s not working out. With a t-shirt and shorts braving the Cambridge cold until “at least” Thanksgiving, Casey finds running to be simply the “fastest, easiest way to travel” when he’s by himself. It spares him the logistics of managing a bike or scooter and allows him to avoid sitting “with my thoughts for 20 minutes,” he says.
For all his speed, though, Casey is certainly not trying to maximize his time indoors. His relationship with nature is a paramount feature of his life, and, in college, he has come to prioritize the experiences he forges outdoors.
“I take so much joy out of just being outside on a good frolic,” he says.
A joint concentrator in Astrophysics and Earth & Planetary Sciences, Casey’s favorite adventures have all incorporated celestial phenomena. He remembers watching the total solar eclipse last spring, venturing “as far north as one can go” in New Hampshire to experience the celestial event on a snow-covered mountain.
“When the shadow of the moon just raced overhead, it was the most powerful and spiritually overwhelming three minutes of my life so far,” he says.
He also recalls driving up to Maine last year to see the Aurora Borealis, which he describes as “extraordinarily magical.” It inspired him to pull together a group on short notice to go see the northern lights again this October, and he says he won’t soon forget the “ripples of light that are racing overhead in total silence and total beauty.”
Casey’s love for the cosmos is one he strives to share with others as the president of the Student Astronomers at Harvard-Radcliffe, which entails running the Loomis-Michael Observatory at the Science Center. He calls the telescope there “probably the closest thing I have to a child on campus” because of its constant need for repairs and his attention.
Like a child, the telescope has also proven to be a powerful way of bringing people together. He remembers finding every planet in one “unhinged” night as well as looking at comets, the rings of Saturn, and Andromeda — all with others. He has organized dark sky trips to Cape Cod and gives telescope training classes.
“To empower other people” to connect with nature and the cosmos is an “extreme honor and privilege and joy,” Casey says.
He does this through not only his leadership of STAHR but also his position as a trip leader in the Harvard Outing Club. He has brought students all throughout the New England wilderness, backpacking, cross-country skiing, and hiking.
On these trips, Casey almost always brings along the recorder he’s been playing since middle school and loves to break into songs. He recently learned how to play “Hot To Go” and turns to “Let It Go” when it gets cold. “It’s very durable and very lightweight and very easy to play if you know what you’re doing,” he says. “It’s too late to go back.”
Casey worries Harvard students can miss these kinds of experiences while buried in coursework, in part because that’s where he found himself freshman year. But he’s since committed himself to “random adventures and shenanigans” and never looked back.
The joy Casey finds in these moments resonates deeply, offering him a “profound feeling of belonging.” It reminds him that he “exists on this planet, along with all the other people and all these plants and animals and critters.”
“You’re just being fully present in the world, and you’re reminded that you have the tremendous fortune of being a human on Earth,” he says.
Casey is writing his thesis about research he’s doing on brown dwarfs, celestial objects too large to be planets but too small to ignite as stars, and spent last summer “literally being a bat” at an observatory in southern Arizona, clocking in at night to record data relating to exoplanets.
Casey understands why an “air of mystique” might surround him, citing the prevalence of his recorder playing, his habit of running to class, and his defiance of New England winters, which he explains are no match for the brutal midwestern winters he grew up with. But he says that he’s “actually just a pretty normal person” with an “undue, perhaps, emphasis on the bit.”
As far as his running goes, Casey says he recently discovered that his preferred mode of locomotion need not be only for efficiency. He recently completed a half marathon and says that “pleasure runs are now the name of the game.”
“I think I just am living my life in a manner that is enjoyable and fun to me,” he says, “and I guess that seems mysterious or strange, but that’s just kind of who I am.”
— Associate Magazine Editor Graham R. Weber can be reached at graham.weber@thecrimson.com.
