The Associated Press

OXFORD, Miss.—Henry Ellis Bass, a physicist and acoustics researcher whose work helped track tornadoes and monitor nuclear tests, has died. He was 64.

A University of Mississippi news release said Bass died Wednesday at Baptist Memorial Hospital-North Mississippi after a long but unspecified illness.

Bass, of Tulsa, Okla., received the Acoustical Society of America’s Silver Medal in 2006 for his technical contributions to the field.

He served as the director of the National Center for Physical Acoustics at the University of Mississippi since 1992.

He began at Ole Miss as a physics professor in 1970 after earning his doctorate at Oklahoma State University.