John Ural Guillory, Jr. was born on July 15, 1940. In the early 1970s, he founded Musica Antiqua, a Medieval and Renaissance musical ensemble, and served as the group's director, musicologist, and wind instrument performer for 25 years, retiring in 1999. Additionally, he served as president of the Washington Early Music Society, performed with the Story Minstrels, and wrote over 30 musical compositions and 20 scholarly works on music history.

A physicist by training, Guillory graduated from Rice University in Houston, Texas in 1962 with a Bachelor of Arts in physics and would go on to receive his Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in physics from the University of California, Berkely in 1970. As a plasma physicist Dr. Guillory specialized in the study of ion and electron beams, a field with applications in astrophysics, and wrote over 100 publications. He taught at the University of Maryland from 1975-1979, consulted for a number of organizations, including the Naval Research Laboratory, and joined the faculty of George Mason University in 1993. During his time at Geroge Mason he helped develop the graduate program at the Institute for Computational Sciences and Informatics. Dr. Guillory retired in 2008. He passed away on July 28, 2013 at the age of 73.