David J. DeWitt (born July 20, 1948) is a computer scientist specializing in database management system research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

[1] Prior to moving to MIT, DeWitt was the John P. Morgridge Professor (Emeritus) of Computer Sciences at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

He was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering (1998) for the theory and construction of database systems.

Also in 2009, he received the IEEE Emanuel R. Piore Award for his contributions to the database systems field.

[3] Several commercial database vendors include an end-user license agreement provision, known as the DeWitt Clause, that prohibits researchers and scientists from explicitly using the names of their systems in academic papers.