J. Ralph Audy was born in Lancashire, England, December 24, 1914, the son of Alphonse William and Hannah (Whitemore) Audy. He spent his early years in Poona, India. He received the M.B.B.S. from Guy's Hospital Medical School, and the Ph.D. (1951) and M.D. (1971) from the University of London.

While in the Royal Army Medical Corps during WWII, Dr. Audy served as head of the Scrub Typhus Research Laboratory at Imphal, on the India-Burma border. He received the oak leaf from the War Office for his efforts there. After the war, Dr. Audy was head of the British Colonial Office Scrub Typhus Research Unit (1947-50), and head of the Division of Medical Zoology and Virus Research in the Institute for Medical Research, Kuala Lumpur (1951-59).

Dr. Audy succeeded Karl F. Meyer, Ph.D., as head of the Hooper Foundation at UCSF in 1959. He was also Chairman of the Department of Epidemiology and International Health, later the Department of International Health, and professor of International Health and Human Ecology. Dr. Audy's interests in epidemiology and medical ecology led to the establishment of a new field, medical geography. He also made substantial contributions to parasitology and medical acarology. Among the many honors of his distinguished career was the Chalmers Memorial medal of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (1959), and a commemorative plaque at the Institute for Medical Research in Kuala Lumpur (1971).

Dr. Audy was Heath Clark Lecturer at the University of London, fellow of the American Public Health Association, the California Academy of Sciences, and Royal Entomological Society, the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. He was a member of AAAS, the American Society of Parasitologists, the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, the British Ecological Society, the New York Academy of Science, and the Royal Society of Medicine.