Denison Olmsted (June 18, 1791 - May 13, 1859) was an American physicist and astronomer. He graduated from Yale University in 1813 and was appointed to the chair of chemistry, mineralogy and geology in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1818. He he proposed and executed the first state geological survey that was ever attempted in the United States, publishing reports of his work in 1824 and 1825. In 1825, he became professor of mathematics and physics at Yale. He published a theory of hail-stones in 1830, which was praised meteorologists. The 1833 Leonid meteor shower attracted his attention, and he studied their history and behavior until he was able satisfactorily to demonstrate their cosmical origin. For this he is credited with giving birth to meteor science. For several years, he carried on a series of observations of the aurora borealis. He wrote several textbooks on natural philosophy and astronomy. He died in 1859 at the age of 67.