Ernest M. Henley is an emeritus professor of physics and former dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Washington. He is also Associate Director (presently Acting Director) of the National Institute for Nuclear Theory. He received a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering degree from the College of the City of New York in 1944 and a Ph.D. in Physics from the University of California at Berkeley in 1952. He was a research associate at Stanford University (1951–1952) and a lecturer in physics at Columbia University (1952–1954) prior to moving to the University of Washington in 1954. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Physical Society and a member of the National Academy of Sciences (Chair of the Physics Section 1998–2001). His research is in theoretical nuclear and particle physics and he is the co-author of several texts.