Sir Howard Dalton, FRS[1] (8 February 1944 – 12 January 2008) was a British microbiologist.

He served as the Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) from March 2002 to September 2007.

Dalton's main fields of interest concerned the physiology, genetics and biochemistry of organisms exhibiting methanotrophy.

His model organisms included Methylococcus capsulatus (Bath) and Methylosinus trichosporium OB3b.

[citation needed] He served as Chair of Biological Sciences at Warwick from 1999 to 2002 before being appointed to DEFRA.