Dr. Irvine Clifton Gardner (1889–1972) was an American physicist.
In 1921, he joined the National Bureau of Standards, and in 1950, he became chief of the Division of Optics and Meteorology. He was the president of the Optical Society of America in 1958.
He was noted for his work on optics and the field of spectroscopy. In his career, he published a number of papers on the subject of optics.
In 1954, he was awarded the Frederic Ives Medal by the Optical Society of America. In 1955, he was awarded a fellowship of the Society of Imaging Science and Technology. The Gardner Inlet and the crater Gardner on the Moon are named after him.