A native of Seattle, Washington, William Wurth Kriegel was born 1907 December 4. He received two B.S. degrees from the University of Washington--civil engineering in 1929 and ceramic engineering in 1932. He obtained his M.S. in ceramic engineering from the Montana School of Mines in 1936, and after receiving his doctorate from the Technische Hochschule in Hannover, Germany, in 1939, Kriegel joined the faculty of the North Carolina State College of Agriculture and Engineering (later North Carolina State University) as an instructor. Subsequently assistant (1940) and associate (1941) professor, he became a full professor and head of the ceramic engineering program in 1946.

An authority on the mechanical properties of ceramic materials, Kriegel was a charter member of Keramos, the professional ceramic engineering fraternity, and a fellow in the American Ceramic Society. He helped found the University Conference on Ceramic Science, and served as a consultant to several private companies and governmental agencies, including the Atomic Energy Commission's Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the U.S. Army's Office of Ordnance Research. Kriegel retired in 1971 after 32 years on the N.C. State faculty, and died in Seattle in 1980 May.