Ernest C. Pollard

Infobox scientist
name = Dr. Ernest Pollard

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image_size = 150px
birth_date = April 4, 1906
birth_place = Yunnan, China
death_date = February 24, 1997
death_place = Jupiter, Florida
nationality = British
field =
work_institutions = Pennsylvania State University
Yale University
University of Florida
alma_mater = University of Cambridge
doctoral_advisor =
doctoral_students =
known_for =
prizes =

Ernest Charles "Ernie" Pollard (1906-04-16 in Yunnan, China – 1997-02-24 in Jupiter, Florida) was a professor of physics and biophysics and an author, who worked on the development of radar systems in World War II, worked on the physics of living cells, and who wrote textbooks and approximately 200 papers on nuclear physics and radiation biophysics.

Biography

The son of Sam Pollard, Ernest C. Pollard lived until age 10 in China, moving to the United Kingdom when his father died. He studied physics at Cambridge University. He did his Ph.D. work under James Chadwick at Cavendish Laboratory, which was led by Ernest Rutherford, receiving his degree in 1932. In 1933, he joined the physics department of Yale University, where he designed the university's first cyclotron in 1939.

From 1941 to 1945 he was a member of the MIT Radiation Laboratory, working on such projects as Li'l Abner (for which he was granted a patent), MEW, the moving target indicator, and the height finder; and serving as associate head, co-head, and head of Division 10. For his work on radar development, he received the Citation of Merit from President of the United States Harry S. Truman.

In 1948 he led the formation of a group of biophysicists at Yale. A department of biophysics was formally organized there in 1954, with funding from the John A. Hartford Foundation, where he became a professor, serving as the departmental chairman until 1961. During this time, Pollard supervised numerous doctoral students including the future Crafoord Prize winner Carl Woese. (The department of biophysics subsequently merged with the department of biochemistry, in 1969, becoming the department of molecular biophysics and biochemistry.)

As part of the centennial celebration at Vassar College, he spoke on "The Advance of Physical Science into the Biological and Social Sciences" at a conference on the natural and social sciences on 1960-11-04. He was also a member of the national Democratic advisory committee on science and technology during John F. Kennedy's presidential campaign. During the 1950s, he was head of the Committee on Loyalty and Security, an arm of the Federation of American Scientists, a group that actively defended scientists that were attacked during the McCarthy hearings.

He founded the Biophysical Society in 1957, serving as a member of its executive board in that year and also as its president later from 1959-1960.

From 1961 until his retirement in 1971 he taught at Pennsylvania State University, founding the Department of Biophysics there. The Ernest C. Pollard Lectures, given at the university as part of a programme of lectures by the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, are named after him, as is the Ernest C. Pollard Professorship in Biotechnology. At the same time he served on the NASA Advisory Committee on Space Biology alongside Carl Sagan.

After retirement, he continued as a research scholar, initially at Pennsylvania State University until 1977 and thereafter at the University of Florida and Duke University, as well as the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences in North Carolina.

Bibliography

* cite book
author=Ernest C. Pollard
title=Radiation: One Story of the M.I.T. Radiation Laboratory (a copy can be found in the papers of Kenneth Bainbridge at Harvard University)
* cite book
author=Ernest C. Pollard
title=Microwaves and radar electronics
year=1948
publisher=J. Wiley
id=ASIN B0007DQ5DQ
* cite book
author=Ernest C. Pollard
title=The physics of viruses
year=1953
publisher=Academic Press
id=ASIN B0007DOTDO — also published in "Scientific American" in December 1954
* cite book
author=Ernest C. Pollard and William Lee Davidson
title=Applied nuclear physics
year=1956
publisher=Wiley
id=ASIN B0007EY7IA
* cite book
author=Ernest C. Pollard and Richard B. Setlow
title=Molecular biophysics
year=1962
publisher=Addison-Wesley
id=
* cite book
author=Ernest C. Pollard
title=Radiation : one story of the M.I.T. Radiation Laboratory
year=1982
location=Durham, NC | publisher=Woodburn Press
id=ISBN 0-9612798-1-8
* cite book
author=Ernest C. Pollard and Douglas C. Huston
title= Physics, an introduction; poets' physics
month=April | year=1985
publisher=Oxford University Press
id=ISBN 0-19-501023-X
* cite book
author=Ernest C. Pollard
title=The Cataclysm: Just the Facts
year=1988
publisher=Woodburn Press, State College
id=ISBN 0-9612798-2-6
* cite book
author=Ernest C. Pollard
title=Radiation: Cells and People
year=1991-12-01
publisher=Woodbine
id=ISBN 0-9612798-3-4
* cite book
author=Ernest C. Pollard, Neena Agarwala, and Wallace Snipes
title=The Molecular Basis of Human Disease and Approaches to Its Treatment
year=1992
publisher=Woodburn Press, Lemont, PA
id=ISBN 0-9612798-5-0
* cite book
author=Ernest C. Pollard
title=Sermons in Stones: Thoughts on moral values that are suggested by the scientific revelations of natural law
year=1993
location=Lemont, PA | publisher=Science and People (The Woodburn Press)
id=ISBN 0-9612798-6-9

References

* cite web | url=http://biophysics.org./about/governance.htm | title=Past Executive Board members
author=
work=Biophysical Society Governance
accessmonthday=September 5
accessyear=2005
* cite web | url=http://www.science.psu.edu/alert/Pollard3-1999.htm | title=Pollard Lecture Set for March 29
author=
work=Penn State Eberly College of Science
accessmonthday=September 5
accessyear=2005
* cite web | url=http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4902/ch4.htm | title=NASA Advisory Groups
author=
work=SP-4902 The Planetary Quarantine Program
accessmonthday=September 5
accessyear=2005 — lists the membership of the NASA Advisory Committee on Space Biology
* cite web | url=http://www.yale.edu/opa/ybc/v25.n25.obit.html | title=Obituary of Ernest C. Pollard
author=
work=Yale Bulletin and Calendar
accessmonthday=September 5
accessyear=2005
* cite web | url=http://www.yale.edu/opa/ybc/v26.n12.obit.html | title=Obituary of Franklin Hutchinson
author=
work=Yale Bulletin and Calendar
accessmonthday=September 5
accessyear=2005 — mentions the formation of the biophysics department
* cite web | url=http://faculty.vassar.edu/daniels/1957_1960.html | title=1957-1960
author=
work=Vassar History
accessmonthday=September 5
accessyear=2005
* cite web | url=http://www.bmb.psu.edu/general/newsletters/news4.htm | title=Ernest C. Pollard - A Founder of the Biophysical Society
author=Stan Person
work=Penn State Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Fall 1997 Newsletter
accessmonthday=September 5
accessyear=2005
* cite web | url=http://www.hamhud.net/darts/scr584.html | title=The Team
author=Steve Bragg
work=SCR-584 Radar Tribute Page
accessmonthday=September 5
accessyear=2005 — The list of the SCR-584 development team in World War II
* cite journal| url=http://www.biophysics.org/publications/sept05.pdf
author=
title=Biophysicists in Profile: Ernest C. Pollard
journal=Biophysical Society Newsletter
month=September | year=2005
format=PDF

Further reading

* cite web | url=http://ieee.org./organizations/history_center/oral_histories/transcripts/pollard.html | title=Pollard oral history
author=John Bryant
work=IEEE History Center
accessmonthday=September 5
accessyear=2005

External links

* [http://wikitree.org/index.php?title=Ernest_C._Pollard Ernest C. Pollard's family tree]