Ernest Charles Pollard, founding chair of Yale's former department of biophysics and a pioneer in that field, died Feb. 24 in Jupiter, Florida, after suffering a stroke. He was 90 years old.
Professor Pollard, who resided on the Isle of Wight, England, was vacationing in Florida at the time of his death. He was a former resident of State College, Pennsylvania.
Professor Pollard was renowned for his work on the physics of living cells. His research focused on how radiation affects cells and viruses, and the repairing of radiation-induced cellular damage. He was one of the first scientists to determine the radius of a nucleus. While conducting his research at Yale in 1939, he designed the University's first atom-smashing cyclotron. He also undertook research in nuclear physics, and he received the Citation of Merit from President Harry S. Truman for his work on radar development during World War II. Professor Pollard was a sought-after consultant who early on advocated using atom-splitting techniques to assess the behavior of viruses and bacteria. He was a member of a national Democratic advisory committee on science and technology during John F. Kennedy's presidential campaign.
Professor Pollard joined the Yale faculty in 1933. In 1955 the University established the department of biophysics as an outgrowth of the physics department. Professor Pollard served as its chair until he left the University in 1961.
The biophysics department was formed as a result of the work Professor Pollard and other faculty members had been conducting in the field, says Franklin Hutchinson, professor emeritus and senior research scientist in molecular biophysics and biochemistry. The Yale researchers operated on the premise that "processes within living cells followed laws of physics and chemistry," says Professor Hutchinson, adding that this "reductionist attitude" countered prevailing biological theories but gained support in the long run. The work of the Yale biophysicists attracted the attention of the John A. Hartford Foundation, which provided the funds used to establish the biophysics department. The department developed over the years and in 1969 merged with the department of biochemistry, becoming what is now known as the department of molecular biophysics and biochemistry, or MB&B.
"One of Ernie's chief contributions to science and education was his ability to incite energy and enthusiasm in other people," says Professor Hutchinson, a former chair of the MB&B department who came to Yale as a graduate student in 1945 specifically to work with Professor Pollard. "He was a natural leader."
As chair of the physics department's biophysics committee, Professor Pollard was instrumental in establishing guidelines for Yale's Ph.D. in biophysics, the first of which was bestowed in 1949. Professor Pollard also played a large role in making science courses at Yale available to all students, not just science majors, remembers Professor Hutchinson. "There were no such courses that I knew of, at least when I came in 1945," he says. "There was resistance. People in the humanities felt it would be very difficult to ask an English major to get involved it the details of physics, for example. On the other side, people in science didn't want what they thought would be watered-down courses. But Ernie was one of the very early people who worked hard to develop science courses for nonscience majors."
Professor Pollard trained scores of doctoral candidates at both Yale and Pennsylvania State University. After leaving Yale, he chaired Penn State's department of biophysics until his retirement in 1971. He subsequently served as a research scholar at the University of Florida and Duke University, as well as the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences in North Carolina.
Ernest Charles Pollard, the son of English missionaries, was born in China. He graduated from Cambridge University in 1928 and four years later was awarded a doctorate in nuclear physics from that university. The author of some 200 academic papers on nuclear physics and radiation biophysics, Professor Pollard also wrote or cowrote a number of textbooks for both academics and for nonscientists.
Professor Pollard was head of the Committee on Loyalty and Security, an arm of the Federation of American Scientists, in the 1950s. The group actively defended scientists who were attacked during the McCarthy hearings. "Ernie felt very strongly that a number of people were being crucified by the McCarthyism of the era," says Professor Hutchinson, who also was a member of the committee.
Professor Pollard was married to his first wife, Elizabeth Waston Pollard, for 53 years before her death in 1986. He leaves his wife, Freda Pollard; a daughter and son from his first marriage, Carol Pollard White of State College, Pennsylvania, and Stephen Pollard of Tequesta, Florida; seven grandchildren and one great-grandson.