Bruce H. Billings

Bruce Hadley Billings (July 6, 1915 – October 21, 1992[1]) was an American physicist. He was president of the Optical Society of America in 1971.[2] and the Polaroid Corporation's chief physicist between 1941 and 1947.[3]

Billings was educated at Phillips Exeter Academy. He received his bachelor's degree in 1936 and his master's degree in 1937, both from Harvard University.[4] Billings obtained his Ph.D. in 1941 from Johns Hopkins University.[3] He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1952.[5]

In the 1950s and 1960s Billings was Senior Vice President for research at Baird-Atomic, Inc. in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he contributed to the development of analytical instrumentation for emission spectroscopy, dual-beam, recording infra-red absorption spectrometry, flame photometry, and investigated the potential of circular dichroism as the basis for instrumentation, a technology that Baird-Atomic, Inc. never commercialized.

Billings died in Long Beach, California, aged 77 from pancreatic cancer.[4]