Walter E. Rahm Jr. ’37

Bill Rahm, pioneer in the medical electronics field and former Princeton psychology department professor, died July 28, 1995.

At Montclair H.S., Bill was in the glee club. At Princeton, he majored in psychology and graduated with honors. He was secretary of the Camera Club and manager of the Student Theater Ticket Agency.

He started off as a technician at the New York State Psychiatric Institute and in 1939 was awarded a fellowship in psychology by Columbia Univ. He was responsible for the first electroencephalographs (EEGs) and electroshock therapy machines built in the U.S. He contributed to the development of the telemetry of medical measurements while he was an assistant professor of experimental medicine at the College of Medicine at the Univ. of Nebraska 1951-53.

While on the faculty at Princeton, he carried out research in the physiology of hearing and the prevention of hearing loss. During WWII, he contributed to the war effort in the field of submarine detection. From 1964 until his retirement in 1976, he did drug research for the state of New Jersey. Since 1940, he had been president and chief engineer of Rahm Instruments, which produces shock-therapeutic devices, brainwave apparatus, and cardiographs.

He is survived by daughters Martha and Susan, son Peter, and two grandchildren.

The Class of 1937