Bruce Harding is a gemstone

Gemstone

A gemstone or gem is a piece of mineral, which, in cut and polished form, is used to make jewelry or other adornments...

 cutter and mechanical design engineer

Engineer

An engineer is a professional practitioner of engineering, concerned with applying scientific knowledge, mathematics and ingenuity to develop solutions for technical problems. Engineers design materials, structures, machines and systems while considering the limitations imposed by practicality,...

 and mathematician

Mathematician

A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....

. He received the Lapidary Award of the Eastern Federation of the Mineralogical and Lapidary Society in 1975. That same year, in an article on "Faceting Limits" in Gems and Gemology, the magazine of the Gemological Institute of America

Gemological Institute of America

The Gemological Institute of America, or GIA, is a nonprofit institute dedicated to research and education in the field of gemology and the jewelry arts. Founded in 1931, GIA's mission is to protect all buyers and sellers of gemstones by setting and maintaining the standards used to evaluate...

, he identified the effect of an observer's head blocking rays of illumination for the main facets of a number of gem materials, including diamonds. In 1986 Harding developed one of the earliest software programs to perform ray path analysis. Harding was a speaker at the International Diamond Cut Conference (IDCC) in Moscow in 2004.