William Francis Brace


William Francis Brace was an American geophysicist.

Career

Education

Brace matriculated in 1943 at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and after 1944–1946 service in the Navy, graduated with bachelor's degrees in 1946 in naval architecture and in 1949 in civil engineering. In 1953 he received his PhD from MIT's department of geology and geophysics. In 1953–1954 he was a Fulbright scholar at Bruno Sander's laboratory in Austria.

Work at MIT

In 1955 he became an assistant professor at MIT and was from 1976 to 1981 MIT's Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Geology, retiring in 1988 as professor emeritus. From 1981 to 1988 he was the head of MIT's Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences. At MIT he established a school of quantitative geological rock formation; this school is associated with results such as Byerlee's Law and Brace-Goetze Strength Profiles.

Retirement

In his retirement, among other activities, Brace undertook the study of grasses and sedges, particularly in Concord, Massachusetts. Over the course of eight years he documented six sedge species and seven grass species new to Concord.

Honors

Brace was a Guggenheim Fellow for the academic year 1960–1961. He was elected in 1953 a Fellow of the Geological Society of America, in 1963 a Fellow of the American Geophysical Society, and in 1971 a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1971 he was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences. In 1987 he received the Bucher Medal of the American Geophysical Union and the Distinguished Achievement Award from the U.S. National Committee on Rock Mechanics. MIT established the William F. Brace Lecture Series in his honor.

Selected publications