Robert d'Escourt Atkinson (born 11 April 1898, Rhayader, Wales – died 28 October 1982, Bloomington, Indiana) was a British astronomer, physicist and inventor.
[1] He taught at Rutgers University in New Jersey from 1929 to 1937, when he became Chief Assistant at the Royal Greenwich Observatory.
[2] During World War II, Atkinson was called away from this position to do anti-magnetic mine work.
In 1944, he was lent out to the Ballistic Research Laboratory at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, where he worked under famed astronomer Edwin Hubble.
[1] In 1929, Atkinson collaborated with Fritz Houtermans to apply Gamow's quantum tunnelling theory to the process of nuclear fusion in stars.