Henry Petroski (February 6, 1942 – June 14, 2023) was an American engineer specializing in failure analysis.

Petroski wrote over a dozen books – beginning with To Engineer is Human: The Role of Failure in Successful Design (1985) and including a number of titles detailing the industrial design history of common, everyday objects, such as pencils, paper clips, toothpicks, and silverware.

Petroski was born in Brooklyn, New York, and was raised in Park Slope and Cambria Heights, Queens.

In 2004, Petroski was appointed to the United States Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board[4] and was reappointed in 2008.

[6] Petroski died from cancer in Durham, North Carolina on June 14, 2023, at the age of 81.