Page 65 - Spring 2007

Passings
Dick Stern
Applied Research Laboratory, The Pennsylvania State University State College, Pennsylvania 16804
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Islands, while engaged in combat with three enemy ships, sinking two and leaving one on fire, his plane was crip- pled and he was wounded by enemy fire. Following his service overseas he was awarded the Silver Star Medal, Purple Heart, Distinguished Flying Cross with Oak Leaf Cluster, Air Medal with three oak-leaf clusters, and other medals including the Asiatic Pacific Area Campaign medal with three battle stars. In December of 1943, he was assigned, as a flight instructor, to the Intermediate Instructors School and the School of Aviation Medicine at the Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Florida. While there he worked the acoustics of microphones in oxygen masks.
After a year at Pensacola he was transferred to the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery in Washington, D.C., assigned as a pilot to the Division of Human Factors in control of Naval air craft and other weapons. His first task was to solve the problem of aiming errors in the launch of torpedoes from submarines. He was next assigned to a U. S. Coast Guard Squadron at Floyd Bennett Field, N.Y that was the first to use the military version of the newly- developed Sikorski Helicopter. Merle was one of the earliest (number 11) Navy helicopter pilots.
During his service with the Navy, Merle wrote and published prolifically and received the Secretary of the Navy Commendation Medal. Upon release to inactive duty in March of 1946, was invit- ed to join the faculty as Assistant Professor in the Psychology Department at Princeton University. In September, 1952 he transferred from Princeton to the faculty of the University of Michigan Medical School, Departments of Otolaryngology, Physiology, Psychology and the Institute of Industrial Health.
Merle Lawrence
Merle Lawrence, born 26 December 1915 in Remsen, New York, died peacefully in his sleep on January 29, 2007. He retired from the University of Michigan in 1985 as Professor Emeritus of Otolaryngology, Physiology, and Psychology. Merle entered Princeton University in the class of 1938. Upon graduation Merle entered the Princeton Graduate School. He and Dr. E. G. Wever published sev- eral papers using the electrical response of the ear to calibrated sound as a measuring technique. Merle received his PhD in 1941 publishing his thesis on “Vitamin A Deficiency And Its Relation To Hearing” and was awarded a National Research Council Fellowship to begin work with Dr. Stacy Guild in the Otology Department of the Johns Hopkins Medical School. Because of the threat of war in May, 1941, Merle volunteered to enter the service as a Naval aviator, receiving his wings and commission in April, 1942. Merle flew over-water patrols from Navy bases in the New Hebrides, Guadalcanal, and others of the Solomon Islands. Over the Green
William Thomson, Jr.
William Thompson, Jr., 70, of State College, passed away on 13 Feb.2007, at home, after a valiant bat- tle with cancer. Dr. Thompson earned a Bachelor's Degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a Master's Degree from Northeastern University and his Ph.D. from Penn State. He taught 14 different courses at Penn State including engineering sci- ence, engineering mechanics, acoustics as well as satellite courses to students at private and government laboratories across the country. He is the co-holder of two patents related to transducers and is a Fellow of the Acoustical Society of America. The Penn State Engineering Society hon- ored Dr. Thompson with its Outstanding Teaching Award in 1984, its Premier Teaching Award in 1993, and its Outstanding Advising Award in 1998.
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