Oliver Ellsworth Buckley (August 8, 1887 – December 14, 1959) was an American electrical engineer known for his contributions to the field of submarine telephony.

Buckley was an undergraduate at Grinnell College until 1909.^[1] He joined the Bell System after completing his PhD in physics at Cornell University in 1914. In 1915, Buckley, along with AT&T coworkers H. D. Arnold and Gustav Elmen, developed a method of substantially improving the transmission performance of submarine communications cable so that transmission speed of over 2000 letters per minute were achieved.^[2] They constructed the cable by wrapping the copper conductors with annealed permalloy tape, a material that Elmen had discovered, thus inductively loading the cable.

Buckley was elected to the United States National Academy of Sciences in 1937,^[3] the American Philosophical Society in 1942,^[4] and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1949.^[5]

Buckley was the president of Bell Labs from 1940 to 1951, and chairman of the board from 1951 until his retirement in 1952.^[6]

Buckley was a member of the General Advisory Committee of the United States Atomic Energy Commission from 1948 to 1954.^[7] In that role, Buckley opposed the 1950 decision to proceed with the development of the hydrogen bomb, but by 1952 had changed his view and supported the program.^[8]

Buckley received the IEEE Edison Medal for "contributions to the science and art which have made possible a transatlantic telephone cable; for wise leadership of a great industrial laboratory; for outstanding services to the government of his country". The Oliver E. Buckley Condensed Matter Prize is named in his honor.