Basis of Selection
This scholarship is granted by the society to a student or students of photographic or imaging science or engineering for use in continuing their studies as graduate or undergraduate students. This grant is made for academic study or research in the theory or practice of image formation by radient energy.
Eligibility
An applicant must be a graduate or undergraduate student who has completed or will complete two academic years of college before the term of the scholarship. The individual must be a full time student pursuing work at an accredited institution, toward the fulfillment of requirements for an academic degree.
Application
Applications for the scholarship are to be submitted to the Honor's and Awards Committee of the Society for Imaging Science and Technology. The deadline for the completed application is December 15.
Approval
Granting of the award is by approval of the Board of Directors of the Society for Imaging Science and Technology.
Frequency of Award
One or more awards will be made annually, depending on the funds that are available. The scholarship is awarded in May at the time of the Society's Annual Conference.
Form of Award
Grant of $1,000 or more and a certificate
Mr. Davis joined the National Bureau of Standards as a photographer in 1911. By 1917, he was constructing equipment for the evaluation of photographic materials. He was an ingenious designer and often made his own apparatus. He insisted on "doing it right the first time," and when a job was done, he could stand back, puff his pipe, watch the thing work, and enjoy the fulfilling sense of satisfaction that only the true craftsman knows. His time-lapse motion picture camera, with automatic exposure control, photographed the construction of the Industrial Building at the National Bureau of Standards in 1918.
By that time he had measured spectrosensitivities, the resolving powers, and several sensitometric characteristics of all available American negative materials. The Photographic Technology Section was established in 1920, with Davis as Chief. In the mid-20's, there was a clear need for a standard light source for sensitometry, so that laboratories could compare sensitometric evaluations on a liquid filter. This proposal was adopted not only nationally, but internationally, for sensitometry. In 1931, Davis-Gibson filters were adopted by the International Commission on Illumination for use of photometry and colorimetry. The Davis-Gibson filters are used to this day in national and international standard light sources.
Davis introduced the concept of "correlated color temperature" to characterize light sources of nearly Planckian spectral distribution. This is an indispensable concept in modern photography, lighting practice, and colorimetry.
Until 1932, The Federal Bureau of Investigations relied on NBS for scientific support and Davis was an important contributor to their investigations. He invented an ingenious technique for photographing the entire cylindrical surface of a bullet, as a continuous photograph on a single film. He invented a remarkably unusual application of the photographic process to the recovery of information from documents charred beyond legibility by fire. He assisted in the scientific analysis of evidence related to the kidnapping of Col. Charles A. Lindbergh's son.
In the early 30's, NBS did a lot of research on microfilm for archival purposes. Congress enacted a law permitting the destruction of federal records on paper, if they had been copied on film meeting the standards of NBS. Davis played a role in that research and was responsible for implementing the law.
To meet the demand on the short supply of handmade reticles and precisely graduated circles for navigational and fire control instruments, Chester Pope and Mr. Davis developed a new light-sensitive resist for producing such scales on glass by photoetching. No one dreamed at that time that these techniques were to be further developed and be widely used in the production of microminiature electronic components. In Davis' lifetime this technology paved the way to man's exploration of the moon, instrumental exploration of the planets, revolutionary advances in aircraft instrumentation, and the development of inexpensive miniature computers.
He helped establish the standardization of photographic materials and processes in the American Standards of Association, predecessor of the American National Standards Institute. From 1938 until his retirement in 1958, he was very active in nearly every facet on national photographic standardization and continued to participate after he retired, as a representative of the Optical Society of America. He represented the United States at the meetings of the Photography and Cinematography Committees of the International Organization for Standardization, in England, in 1958. He was a soft-spoken and modest man, but stood courageously for doing things right and argued persistently and persuasively for his position on standards.
He was a Charter member and the first President of the Society of Photographic Engineers, founded in January 21, 1947. The society merged with the Technical Section of the Photographic Society of America in 1957, to become the Society of Photographic Scientists and Engineers. He was one of the first two Fellows of SPSE, along with John A. Maurer, having been awarded that honor in 1954. He was a Fellow of the Optical Society of America, Fellow of the Washington Academy of Sciences and member of the American Chemical Society, International Congress of Photography, Philosophical Society of Washington, Chemical Society of Washington and one of the founders of the Federal Photographers. He was a Registered Engineer in the District of Columbia.
He leaves his wife, Dr. Marian MacLean Davis, a well recognized authority on the chemistry of acids and bases in inert solvents, who is retired from NBS but continues writing and editing in her field; two sons, Dr. Raymond Davis, Jr., who heads the Brookhaven Solar Neutrino Experiment and Col. Warren Davis, U.S. Army, retired; eight grandchildren all of whom are in or planning careers in science and two great grandchildren.
Raymond Davis passed away, in his sleep, in the early morning of September 5, 1974, at his home in Washington, D.C. He was 86 years old and nationally known for his contributions to the photographic sensitometry, colorimetry, and microphotography.