John Wilson Lewis (November 16, 1930 – September 4, 2017) was an American political scientist.

A native of King County, Washington, Lewis graduated from Deep Springs College in 1949 before earning a bachelor's degree at University of California, Los Angeles.

He returned to UCLA after serving in the United States Navy from 1954 to 1957.

[5][6] From 1983 to 1990, Lewis led what became the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center.

He lived on the Stanford University campus, where he died at the age of 86 on September 4, 2017.