Robert Madden

1928-2014

Robert Madden received his B.S. in physics from the University of Rochester in 1950, and he earned his Ph.D. in physics from Johns Hopkins University in 1956. His thesis was on infrared spectroscopy. Madden was hired by Karl Kessler and Lewis Branscomb in 1961 as the section chief of the National Bureau of Standards’ (NBS, now the National Institute of Standards and Technology, NIST) new Far UV Physics Section of the Atomic Physics Division. 

Notable honors and awards:

• Director’s Medal, U.S. Army Engineer R&D Laboratories, 1961
• The Washington Academy of Sciences Award, 1965
• Silver Medal, U.S. Department of Commerce, 1964
• Samuel Wesley Stratton Award, National Bureau of Standards, 1970
• William F. Meggers Award, Optical Society of America, 1978
• U.S. President’s Meritorious Executive Award, 1982
• Fellow, American Physical Society
• Fellow, Optical Society of America
• Fellow, Washington Academy of Sciences

Other appointments: 

• Research associate, Laboratory of Astrophysics and Physical Meteorology, Johns Hopkins University, 1956-58
• Chief, Spectroscopy Section, Physics Research Laboratory, U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center, 1958-61

Research interests: design and operation of synchrotron radiation sources; ultraviolet radiation spectroscopy; physics of thin films; radiometry; fundamental atomic and molecular physics