Austin was born in Orwell, Vermont, and educated at Middlebury College (class of 1889) and the University of Strasbourg (then in Germany), from which he received a Ph.D. in 1893.

From 1893-1901, he taught physics as an instructor and assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, then returned to Germany for two years at the Physikalisch-Technische Reichsanstalt in Berlin where he performed research on hot gases.

These measurements led Austin and collaborator Dr. Louis Cohen to develop the empirical Austin-Cohen formula for predicting radio signal strength at long distances.

Austin served one year as Fellow in Physics at Clark University in Massachusetts, then returned to Germany to complete his doctoral studies.

Laboratory practice was a significant part of Austin's curriculum and in this he greatly emphasised the need for careful attention to detail to achieve the highest possible accuracy with the instruments available.

But the discovery had to await almost two decades for commercial applications to develop in the form of the photomultiplier, a key enabler of television technology and today's advances in neutrino detectors.

The primary function of the Physikalisch-Technische Reichsanstalt in Germany was to establish national metrological standards including measurement and calibration techniques.

In the USA that function was charged to the Bureau of Standards and Austin's work at the PTR would have been favourably viewed by his future employer.

This was the lasting testament of a few years circa 1911 of exacting measurements undertaken by Austin and his friend and colleague Louis Cohen.

The latter variable is particularly troublesome varying greatly with the type of the ground (rock, soil, clay or sand), its depth profile, cover and moisture content; almost impossible to measure directly.

Today effective ground conductivity is mostly calculated from measurement of the actual attenuation of radio waves propagating over that surface.

It would provide for decades both his employers with a scientific basis to plan their naval radio communications services as well as the brightest mathematicians a yardstick against which to test their surfacewave propagation deterministic models.