Rear Admiral David Watson Taylor (March 4, 1864 – July 28, 1940) was a naval architect and engineer of the United States Navy. He served during World War I as Chief Constructor of the Navy, and Chief of the Bureau of Construction and Repair. Taylor constructed the first towing tank for the model tests of ships ever built in the United States. He created the “Taylor Standard Series” of 80 models with systematically varying proportions and prismatic coefficient of hull forms, which are still used for preliminary predictions of ship resistance for twin screw, moderate to high speed ships, while the book has been revised to some large extent to apply for not only naval vessels but also merchant ships. Taylor's main contribution was to recognize that the slenderness ratio, the beam to draft ratio, and the prismatic coefficient are the critical parameters for resistance of ships. The US Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers (www.sname.org) awards the David W. Taylor Medal to an individual of any nationality who has made notable achievement in naval architecture and/or marine engineering, as the Society’s highest award for professional achievement.