John Addison Porter (March 15, 1822 – August 25, 1866) was an American professor of chemistry and physician.

He is the namesake of the John Addison Porter Prize and was a founder of the Scroll and Key senior society of Yale University.

In 1844 he became a professor at Delaware College and remained there until 1847 when he moved to Germany to study at the University of Giessen under Justus von Liebig.

One of their sons was another John Addison Porter, who became the first person to hold the title "Secretary to the President",[4] when he served in that capacity to William McKinley.

The John Addison Porter Prize, established in 1872, is a prize at Yale University awarded annually to the best work of scholarship in any field "where it is possible, through original effort, to gather and relate facts or principles, or both, and to present the results in such a literary form as to make the product of general human interest.