Augusto Righi (27 August 1850 – 8 June 1920) was an Italian physicist and a pioneer in the study of electromagnetism. He was born and died in Bologna.
His early research, conducted in Bologna between 1872 and 1880, was primarily in electrostatics. In 1880 he became ordinary professor in physics at the University of Palermo, where he studied the conduction of heat and electricity in bismuth. From 1885 to 1889 he was a professor at the University of Padua (Padova), studying the photoelectric effect. Towards the end of 1889 he was called to the University of Bologna, his home city, where he worked for the rest of his life on subjects such as the Zeeman Effect, 'Roentgen rays', magnetism and the results of Michelson's experiments.
One of Righi's famous pupils was Guglielmo Marconi. Marconi studied under Righi at his lab in Bologna.