David Richardson Medal

The David Richardson Medal is awarded by the Optical Society (formerly the Optical Society of America) to recognize significant contributions to optical engineering, primarily in the commercial and industrial sector.[1] The award was first made in 1966 to its namesake David J. Richardson. He received it for distinctive contributions to the ruling and replicating of gratings, used to determine the transfer functions of lenses. There is a prize associated with the medal.

Richardson received a graduate degree in spectroscopy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the mid 1930s. He was hired by Bausch and Lomb in 1947 to establish a grating and scale-ruling laboratory. With time, this laboratory became the World's leader in diffraction gratings and in 1966 Bausch and Lomb named it the David Richardson Grating Laboratory.[2] Since 2004 this laboratory is owned by the Newport Corporation.