Richard C. Powell

Richard C. Powell (born 1939) is an American professor emeritus of physics and vice president emeritus of the University of Arizona (UA), whose career focused on research in materials science and laser optics. He served as president of the Optical Society of America in 2000.

Early life and education Powell was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, and was reared in Ottumwa, Iowa. He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1962, and took his commission in the U.S. Air Force because the Air Force offered immediate support for study in a Ph.D. program.

Following his retirement, he became a senior fellow at the UA Science and Tech Park, expanding "their Solar Zone to test, evaluate and demonstrate solar technologies."

His textbooks are Physics of Solid-State Laser Materials, Symmetry, Group Theory, and the Physical Properties of Crystals, and with Baldassare Di Bartolo, Crystal Symmetry, Lattice Vibrations and Optical Spectroscopy of Solids.

Awards and honors The University of Arizona honored Powell as an innovator with a 2005 Technology Innovation Award for "moving UA technology out of the laboratory and into the marketplace."

In 1999, he was also elected to the Russian Academy of Engineer Science.