James Edward Gunn (born October 21, 1938) is the Eugene Higgins Professor of Astronomy at Princeton University.

He also suggested important observational tests to confirm the presence of dark matter in galaxies, and predicted the existence of a Gunn–Peterson trough in the spectra of distant quasars.

He also played a major role with the Wide Field and Planetary Camera on the Hubble Space Telescope.

He earned his bachelor's degree at Rice University in Houston, Texas, in 1961, and his Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in 1965.

Subsequently, he worked at the University of California at Berkeley and Caltech before returning to Princeton.