He earned a PhD in mechanics from Illinois Institute of Technology in 1958 with August J.
[2] He moved to the University of Maryland, College Park as a professor and department chair from 1971 to 1979.
[citation needed] After a move to the University Rhode Island as the Dean of the College Engineering from 1979 to 1982 and IBM from 1982 to 1984, he returned to University Maryland, College Park, as a professor mechanical engineering until his retirement in 1997 and continues on as emeritus.
[4] He contributed to seminal books in the fields of mechanics, including Experimental Stress Analysis[5] with William F. Riley.
[1] The University of Maryland, College Park also has a James W. Dally Endowed Scholarship in his name.