The son of Sam Pollard, Ernest C. Pollard lived until age 10 in China, moving to the United Kingdom when his father died. He studied physics at Cambridge University. He did his PhD work under James Chadwick at Cavendish Laboratory, which was led by Ernest Rutherford, receiving his degree in 1932. In 1933, he joined the physics department of Yale University, where he designed the university's first cyclotron in 1939. He co-wrote the first "textbook" in the subject: Applied Nuclear Physics with William L. Davidson, Jr. then Research Physicist of the B.F. Goodrich Company, published in 1942.

From 1941 to 1945 he was a member of the MIT Radiation Laboratory, working on such projects as Li'l Abner (for which he was granted a patent), MEW, the moving target indicator, and the height finder; and serving as associate head, co-head, and head of Division 10. For his work on radar development, he received the President's Certificate of Merit from President of the United States Harry S. Truman.

In 1948 he led the formation of a group of biophysicists at Yale. A department of biophysics was formally organized there in 1954, with funding from the John A. Hartford Foundation, where he became a professor, serving as the departmental chairman until 1961. During this time, Pollard supervised numerous doctoral students including the future Crafoord Prize winner Carl Woese. (The department of biophysics subsequently merged with the department of biochemistry, in 1969, becoming the department of molecular biophysics and biochemistry.)

As part of the centennial celebration at Vassar College, he spoke on The Advance of Physical Science into the Biological and Social Sciences at a conference on the natural and social sciences on 1960-11-04. He was also a member of the national Democratic advisory committee on science and technology during John F. Kennedy's presidential campaign. During the 1950s, he was head of the Committee on Loyalty and Security, an arm of the Federation of American Scientists, a group that actively defended scientists that were attacked during the McCarthy hearings.

Pollard founded the Biophysical Society in 1957, serving as a member of its executive board in that year and also as its president later from 1959–1960.

From 1961 until his retirement in 1971 Pollard taught at Pennsylvania State University, founding the Department of Biophysics there. The Ernest C. Pollard Lectures, given at the university as part of a programme of lectures by the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, are named after him, as is the Ernest C. Pollard Professorship in Biotechnology. At the same time he served on the NASA Advisory Committee on Space Biology alongside Carl Sagan.

After retirement, he continued as a research scholar, initially at Pennsylvania State University until 1977 and thereafter at the University of Florida and Duke University, as well as the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences in North Carolina.

• Ernest C. Pollard. Radiation: One Story of the M.I.T. Radiation Laboratory. (a copy can be found in the papers of Kenneth Bainbridge at Harvard University)
• Ernest C. Pollard (1948). Microwaves and radar electronics. J. Wiley. ASIN B0007DQ5DQ.
• Ernest C. Pollard and William L. Davidson Jr, (1942) Applied Nuclear Physics. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. New York
• Ernest C. Pollard (1953). The physics of viruses. Academic Press. ASIN B0007DOTDO. — also published in Scientific American in December 1954
• Ernest C. Pollard; William Lee Davidson (1956). Applied nuclear physics. Wiley. ASIN B0007EY7IA.
• Ernest C. Pollard; Richard B. Setlow (1962). Molecular biophysics. Addison-Wesley.
• Ernest C. Pollard (1982). Radiation : one story of the M.I.T. Radiation Laboratory. Durham, NC: Woodburn Press. ISBN 978-0-9612798-1-3.
• Ernest C. Pollard; Douglas C. Huston (April 1985). Physics, an introduction; poets' physics. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-501023-7.
• Ernest C. Pollard (1988). The Cataclysm: Just the Facts. Woodburn Press, State College. ISBN 978-0-9612798-2-0.
• Ernest C. Pollard (December 1, 1991). Radiation: Cells and People. Woodbine. ISBN 978-0-9612798-3-7.
• Ernest C. Pollard; Neena Agarwala; Wallace Snipes (1992). The Molecular Basis of Human Disease and Approaches to Its Treatment. Woodburn Press, Lemont, PA. ISBN 978-0-9612798-5-1.
• Ernest C. Pollard (1993). Sermons in Stones: Thoughts on moral values that are suggested by the scientific revelations of natural law. Lemont, PA: Science and People (The Woodburn Press). ISBN 978-0-9612798-6-8.

• "Past Executive Board members". Biophysical Society Governance. Archived from the original on November 27, 2005. Retrieved September 5, 2005.
• "Pollard Lecture Set for March 29". Penn State Eberly College of Science. Archived from the original on April 12, 2005. Retrieved September 5, 2005.
• Phillips, C. R. (January 1974). "NASA Advisory Groups". SP-4902 The Planetary Quarantine Program. Retrieved September 5, 2005. — lists the membership of the NASA Advisory Committee on Space Biology
• "Obituary of Ernest C. Pollard". Yale Bulletin and Calendar. Archived from the original on September 6, 2005. Retrieved September 5, 2005.
• "Obituary of Franklin Hutchinson". Yale Bulletin and Calendar. Archived from the original on November 30, 2005. Retrieved September 5, 2005. — mentions the formation of the biophysics department
• "1957–1960". Vassar History. Archived from the original on October 29, 2005. Retrieved September 5, 2005.
• Stan Person. "Ernest C. Pollard – A Founder of the Biophysical Society". Penn State Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Fall 1997 Newsletter. Archived from the original on April 5, 2005. Retrieved September 5, 2005.
• Steve Bragg. "The Team". SCR-584 Radar Tribute Page. Archived from the original on November 25, 2005. Retrieved September 5, 2005. — The list of the SCR-584 development team in World War II
• "Biophysicists in Profile: Ernest C. Pollard" (PDF). Biophysical Society Newsletter. September 2005. Archived from the original (PDF) on June 14, 2006.

• John Bryant. "Pollard oral history". IEEE History Center. Retrieved October 18, 2008.^{[permanent dead link]}