William Fry
- Birthdate
- 1918/04/14
- Birthplace
- Johnstown, PA, USA
- Associated organizations
- University of Illinois, Urbana
- Fields of study
- Biomedical engineering
Biography
William J. Fry (IRE Associate, 1942, and Member, 1955) was born in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, on 14 April 1918. He received the B.S. and M.S. degrees from Pennsylvania State University, University Park, in 1940 and 1941, respectively.
From 1939 to 1941, Fry was a Graduate Assistant in Physics at Penn State, and from 1941 to 1946, he was a Research Physicist at the Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, D.C.
In 1946, Fry joined the faculty at the University of Illinois, Urbana, first as a Research Assistant Professor, and in 1956 he was Research Professor and Head of the Biophysical Research Laboratory, which he established at the university. Included in his personal research were contributions to the following fields: quantitative neuroanatomy, analysis of cardiovascular systems, physical mechanism of the action of ultrasound on biological systems, ultrasonic human neurosurgery, mechanism of acoustical adsorption in tissue, vision mechanism, reversible changes in the central nervous system produced by ultrasound, design of ultrasonic transducers, and ultrasonic interferometry.
Fry was a Fellow on the Acoustical Society of America, and a member of the American Physiological Society, the American Academy of Neurology, American Mathematical Society, Mathematical Association of America, Society for General Systems Theory, American Institute of Physics, American Institute of Ultrasonics in Medicine, the Biophysical Society, and Sigma Xi.
