Professor Duffy received a B.E.E. degree from Santa Clara University in 1953. He subsequently received an M.S. in electrical engineering in 1954 and a Ph.D. in physics in 1959, both from Stanford University. After graduate school, he spent a year as a post-doctoral fellow at the Kamerlingh Onnes Laboratory at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands. Professor Duffy joined the SCU Physics faculty in 1959, where he served as department chair for sixteen years and introduced one of the first undergraduate Engineering Physics programs in the country. His decades-long SCU research program focused on solid state physics, particularly in the area of acoustic losses in metallic elements and alloys at ultralow temperatures. Professor Duffy's pioneering research efforts at Santa Clara were recognized with his being awarded the University's Excellence in Scholarship Award. Professor Duffy retired from the University in August 2002.