Page 42 - Spring 2018

Floyd Dunn and Biomedical Ultrasound
diagnostic ultrasound (virtually every pregnant woman has her fetus evaluated ultrasonically) could not have occurred without these assurances of “lack of effect.”
Ultrasonic Toxicity
Finally, and in keeping with the scholarly theme of ultrasonic safety, Floyd’s studies of ultrasound toxicity dealt largely with mammalian reproductive organs because these organs had an ample opportunity to become ultrasonically exposed during routine therapy and diagnostic clinical procedures. The mam- malian testis was shown to respond considerably differently to ultrasound exposures than to ionizing radiation exposures (O’Brien et al., 1979; Bailey et al., 1981; Carnes et al., 1991). Also, studies with the mammalian ovary (Bailey et al., 1983, 1984) showed that the different ovarian phases manifested dif- ferent ultrasonic responses. Both organ systems were evaluat- ed extensively, and these studies have, to date, been reassuring as to the safety of diagnostic ultrasound. Floyd’s seminal work on reproductive tissues is doubly important (and reassuring) because of the potential concern of ultrasonically induced ge- netic effects (Carnes et al., 1995).
Elsa and Crazy Thoughts
It is not possible to write about Floyd Dunn without includ- ing his wife Elsa. Floyd and Elsa (Figure 5) were introduced in 1946 shortly after Floyd returned from the European the- ater. According to Floyd and Elsa’s daughter Andi and son Roo, “Aunt Minnie, who seated them together at a family wedding, had exclaimed, ‘They are both crazy. Maybe they will talk to each other.’ Aunt Minnie was right, and the con- versation continued for more than 64 years.” Floyd and Elsa were married on June 11, 1950, after Floyd became an elec- trical engineering graduate student. Elsa passed on Decem- ber 26, 2014. Floyd passed 29 days later on January 24, 2015.
Floyd and Elsa both greatly enjoyed their travels. Floyd was a visiting professor in the Department of Microbiology at University College, Cardiff, Wales; a visiting senior scientist at the Institute of Cancer Research (University of London), Sutton, Surrey, UK; a visiting professor at the University of Nanjing, Nanjing, China; and a visiting professor at Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan.
Public Service and Awards
Floyd Dunn served important leadership roles in the Acous- tical Society of America (ASA) as vice president (1981-1982) and president (1982-1983). Floyd also served for almost five decades as an associate editor on The Journal of the Acousti-
Figure 5. Elsa and Floyd on the occasion of Floyd’s 90th birth- day gathering in Tucson, AZ.
cal Society of America (JASA), starting in 1968 and serving for many years following his 1995 retirement from the Uni- versity of Illinois when he and Elsa moved to Tucson, AZ. As a JASA Associate Editor, Floyd was responsible for the field of bioacoustics, for which he maintained high standards and made JASA an essential repository of research findings in this area.
As a distinguished Fellow of the ASA, Floyd was recognized with its highest awards: the Silver Medal in Bioresponse to Vibration (1989), of which he was the first recipient, and the Gold Medal (1998).
Floyd received many prestigious awards and honors in rec- ognition of his distinguished career and the research he and his graduate students conducted. He was a member of both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Acad- emy of Engineering.
A list of his honors and achievements does not come close to recognizing Floyd for the giant he was in the field of ul- trasonic biophysics. But, nonetheless, we are left with these imaginative, creative giants: Elsa and Floyd, who, as Aunt Minnie observed, were “both crazy.” We have been blessed with such craziness, and we are better for it.
Acknowledgments
I thank Elsa and Floyd’s son Roo Dunn and daughter Andi Dunn, Larry Kessler (Floyd’s graduate student in the 1960s when I was also a graduate student), and James Andrew Hutchinson, Department of Electrical and Computer Engi- neering Publications Editor, University of Illinois at Urba- na-Champaign, for attention to factual and editorial details. Partial funding was provided by Grant R37EB002641 from the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengi- neering (NIBIB), National Institutes of Health.
40 | Acoustics Today | Spring 2018