Remembering Harold Wayland

A memorial service for J. Harold Wayland, professor of engineering science, emeritus, was held in Dabney Lounge on January 29. Wayland died October 10 at the age of 91.

Wayland was a member of the Caltech family for 65 years, noted George Housner, Braun Professor of Engineering, Emeritus, whose own friendship with him went back 50 years. Wayland earned his PhD from Caltech in 1937 and, after service in the Navy, returned to join the faculty in 1949. He was appointed full professor in 1957 and retired as professor emeritus in 1979.

Also speaking at the memorial service was another longtime friend, Bill Pickering, professor of electrical engineering, emeritus, and former director of JPL, who recalled first meeting Wayland when they were both graduate students in the mid ’30s. They and their families remained close over the following decades.

Wayland’s research focused on microcirculation, in particular the flow of blood through capillaries. He was a “pioneer in what we now call bioengineering,” said Housner. Several of his former colleagues
—including Yuan-Cheng Fung, PhD ’48, who went on to establish UC San Diego’s department of bioengineering—spoke at the memorial on Wayland’s crucial role in founding this field.

Both Pickering and Ward Whaling, professor of physics, emeritus, remarked on Wayland’s interests in music and art—and food and wine. His elegant “private” dinners at the wineless, plain-food Athenaeum of the ’50s paved the way for the Athenaeum’s reputation for fine dining today, said Whaling. “I think Harold would count that as one of his worthy accomplishments.”
•