Dolan graduated in 1929 from the University of Illinois in civil engineering with highest honors and named Bronze Tablet.
He spent the remainder of his career at the University of Illinois, with the except of a period during World War II when he was a captain in the U.S. Army (1942–45).
[2] He studied fatigue and fracture of metals and introduced the Dolan-Corten Cumulative Damage Theory, published in 1956.
[3] Dolan was Head of the Department of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics at the University of Illinois from 1952 to 1970.
[4] He was named the ninth Honorary Member of the Society in 1975, a position held until his death in 1996.