John Frederick Hawley (August 23, 1958 – December 12, 2021) was an American astrophysicist and a professor of astronomy at the University of Virginia.

[5] He and his early collaborators pioneered numerical techniques for accretion flows and in the creation of graphics and animations to communicate their results.

[7][8] In 2013, he and former colleague Steven Balbus shared the Shaw Prize in Astronomy for their work on the magnetorotational instability (MRI).

[1] According to the Shaw selection committee the "discovery and elucidation of the magnetorotational instability (MRI)" solved the previously "elusive" problem of accretion, a widespread phenomenon in astrophysics and "provides what to this day remains the only viable mechanism for the outward transfer of angular momentum in accretion disks".

"[1] On the prize money, he commented "We're just selfless scientists who live for the joy of discovery, but it's nice to get some cash, too.