James Kip Finch (December 1, 1883 – April 1967) was an American engineer and educator.
He attended Columbia University, receiving a Bachelor of Science in civil engineering in 1906 and a Master of Arts in 1911.
He was a member of the Episcopal Church and, in his leisure time, a keen painter with watercolors and oils.
He left Columbia for an interval beginning in 1907, during which he taught at Lafayette College, Easton, Pennsylvania before joining a succession of engineering firms in New York City: he was with an architectural firm, John B. Snook's Sons, during 1907, spent 1908 working for D. J. Ryan, a contractor in Brooklyn, and for List and Rose Contractors.
He also received prominent engineering and academic awards throughout his career, notably the Columbia Alumni Medal in 1932; the gold medal of the Class of 1889 at the Commencement of 1942; the Egleston Medal of the Columbia Engineering School Alumni Association in 1944; the French Ordre des Palmes Académiques in 1949; the "Great Teacher Award" from the Columbia Society of Older Graduates in 1951; the honorary degree of Doctor of Science from Columbia University in 1954; and, in 1967, the first ASCE Civil Engineering History and Heritage Award.