Dr. Ernest Mark Henley (June 10, 1924 in

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...

– March 27, 2017) was an American atomic and

nuclear physicist Nuclear physics is the field of physics that studies atomic nuclei and their constituents and interactions, in addition to the study of other forms of nuclear matter. Nuclear physics should not be confused with atomic physics, which studies the ...

. In 1944 Dr. Henley received a B.E.E. in

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

from the

City College of New York The City College of the City University of New York (also known as the City College of New York, or simply City College or CCNY) is a public university within the City University of New York (CUNY) system in New York City. Founded in 1847, Cit ...

. From 1944 to 1946, he served in the U.S. Navy, decommissioning and repairing electrical equipment on ships and submarines. He worked at the Airborne Instruments Laboratory as an electrical engineer from 1946 to 1948. Between 1950 and 1951 he worked at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is conside ...

, and received a Ph.D. from

UC Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant uni ...

in 1952. From 1952 to 1954, he was a Jewett Fellow and lecturer at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

. In 1954, Dr. Henley accepted a faculty position at the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seatt ...

where he remained for his entire career, serving as Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences between 1979 and 1987. Over the course of his research career, Dr. Henley studied symmetries in nuclear physics. In 1976 Dr. Henley calculated with Lawrence Wilets the effects on parity non-conservation in atomic physics, and later he calculated parity violating effects in the parton model with Stephen Ellis and

David Callaway David J. E. Callaway is a biological nanophysicist in the New York University School of Medicine, where he is Professor and Laboratory Director. He was trained as a theoretical physicist by Richard Feynman, Kip Thorne, and Cosmas Zachos, and w ...

From 1979 to 1987 he was Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences there and Director of the Institute for Theoretical Nuclear Physics in 1990-1991. He was Professor

Emeritus ''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...

since 1995. He dedicated his retirement to teaching Physics at the University of Washington's Transition School and Early Entrance Program, the Robinson Center for Young Scholars. In 2014 at the age of 90 Dr. Henley retired from this position. In 1979 he was elected a member of the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nat ...

. In 1992 he was president of the

American Physical Society The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of k ...

, where he chaired the Nuclear Physics section from 1979 to 1980. In 1989 he received the Tom W. Bonner prize in nuclear physics. In 2005 he received an honorary Dr. rer. nat. in physics from the Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen, Germany.

Publications

* with Walter Thirring: Elementare Quantenfeldtheorie, BI Verlag 1975 (English original: Elementary Quantum Field Theory, McGraw Hill 1962) * with Hans Frauenfelder: Nuclear and Particle Physics, Benjamin 1975 * with Hans Frauenfelder: Subatomic Physics, Prentice-Hall 1974, 2nd edn. 1991, (in German): Teilchen und Kerne: Subatomare Physik, Oldenbourg 1979, 4th edn. 1999

Notes

* 1924 births 2017 deaths American physicists University of Washington faculty Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences German emigrants to the United States Fellows of the American Physical Society Presidents of the American Physical Society {{US-physicist-stub