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William C. Meecham, UCLA professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering
and an outspoken authority on the effects of airport noise, died March
11 from heart failure. He was 77.
"We were saddened to learn of the death of our friend and colleague," said Vijay Dhir, dean of the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science. "Bill was an extremely collegial man known worldwide for his knowledge of acoustics, fluid mechanics and turbulence theory. It is a tremendous loss for his family and for the School." Meecham joined the faculty at UCLA in 1967, and was soon appointed chair of what is now known as the mechanical and aerospace engineering (MAE) department. He served in that capacity from 1969 to 1970. Since the early 1970s he frequently acted as an expert legal witness on the effects of jet noise on mortality rates, mental hospital admissions and other adverse community health effects. He was a consultant for dozens of companies and government agencies including TRW, General Electric, Boeing, Lockheed-Martin, The RAND Corporation and NASA. "Bill was a very public-spirited individual," said professor and dean emeritus Russell O'Neill, "especially in the area of airport noise. He was always in the middle of the fray." "Bill was a champion of liberal causes of all types," said Ivan Catton, an MAE professor who knew Meecham since his arrival at UCLA. "When noise from the aircraft landing at LAX became a big issue, Bill was a major participant in the battle that eventually led to the schools beneath the flight path being moved." A 1982 investigation by Meecham found a higher rate of cardiovascular deaths, strokes, suicides and murder among 200,000 people who lived in a flight-path corridor near Los Angeles International airport than in the rest of the city, which was partly attributable to the effects of prolonged exposure to loud noise. Since 1987 he was a member of the West Los Angeles chapter of the No-Noise Committee, part of the Acoustical Society of America. From 1990 to 1992 he was a member of the Citizens Advisory Committee of the Los Angeles Airport Commission. Meecham was a respected researcher and teacher, according to colleagues. "Bill was a brilliant analyst with a sense of humor and love of peace, and we are going to miss him dearly," said T. Thomas Hahn, professor and chair of the mechanical and aerospace engineering department at UCLA. "He was friendly, easy going and full of energy. A number of his former students owe him their successful professional careers." Meecham earned his B.S. and M.S. degrees in 1948, and his Ph.D. in mathematical physics in 1954, all from the University of Michigan. Before joining the faculty at UCLA's Engineering School in 1967, he was an assistant professor at the University of Michigan; a visiting scientist at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography, University of California; professor at the University of Minnesota and a senior research scientist at Lockheed Research Laboratories. In 1972 he was the founding member of the Institute of Noise Control Engineering. He was also a member of Tau Beta Pi, (the honorary engineering society), Phi Kappa Phi (the honorary journalism society), Sigma Xi and the American Physical Society. He was a Fellow of the Acoustical Society of America, Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and a member of the New York Academy of Science. Meecham is survived by his wife, Della; a son, William, and a daughter,
Janice.
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