Ernest R. Davidson, born October 12, 1936, in Terre Haute, Indiana, is a former professor of chemistry, University of Washington (1961–1984, 2002–2020) and Indiana University-Bloomington (1984–2002).^[1] He graduated from Wiley High School, Terre Haute and Rose Polytechnic Institute (BS chemical engineering), Terre Haute, and Indiana University (PhD theoretical chemistry), Bloomington, Indiana.^[2]

His name is associated with both the Davidson correction and the "Davidson diagonalization" method which he applied to configuration interaction methods. He is the author of over 400 publications, including Reduced Density Matrices in Quantum Chemistry, Academic Press, 1976.

He has been awarded many honors, including Guggenheim fellow in 1974, member of the International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science (1981) and Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1985) and the National Academy of Sciences (1987).^[3] In 2001, he was awarded the National Medal of Science.^[4]