Remembering Ernest Henley, physicist and UW College of Arts & Sciences dean emeritus

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April 17, 2017








Katherine B. Turner/University of Washington

Ernest Mark Henley, a celebrated nuclear physicist and University of Washington administrator, died on March 27, 2017, at age 92.
Henley’s research career began in the postwar era as physicists sought to understand how the universe’s fundamental particles interact with one another. Through a combination of his theoretical work and rigorous experiments, his research helped physicists assemble the Standard Model, today’s framework of fundamental particles and forces.
Parallel to his research life, Henley was a leader and administrator at the UW, culminating in eight years of service as dean of the College of Arts & Sciences from 1979 to 1987.
“Ernest Henley was a brilliant physicist and also a man of great intellectual and cultural range, who was seriously knowledgeable about everything from nuclear physics to art to literature,” said Dean Robert Stacey. “He was a great dean, who laid the foundations for the College of Arts & Sciences as we know it today.”
Henley was born in Germany on June 10, 1924. He earned his undergraduate degree in electrical engineering from the City College of New York in 1944 and a doctoral degree in physics from the University of California, Berkeley in 1952.

Ernest M. Henley

After short stints as a research associate at Stanford University and lecturer at Columbia University, Henley joined the UW faculty in 1954 as an assistant professor. He was promoted to associate professor in 1957 and full professor in 1961. Before becoming dean of the College of Arts & Sciences, Henley served as chair of the UW Faculty Senate from 1971 to 1972 and chair of the Department of Physics from 1973 to 1976. Along with Wick Haxton, he was a central force in building the UW Institute for Nuclear Theory and served as its inaugural director from 1990 to 1991. Henley became a professor emeritus in 1995.
“Ernest Henley was universally respected throughout the field of physics as a man ...

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