Takafumi Matsui (Japanese: 松井孝典, 7 March 1946 – 22 March 2023) was a Japanese planetary scientist, geophysicist, science communicator and academic.

Born in Shizuoka, Matsui graduated from the Faculty of Science of the University of Tokyo, and after a stage as a visiting researcher at NASA he became professor at the Graduate School of Frontier Sciences of his alma mater.

[1][2] He was specialized in astrobiology and comparative planetary science.

[3] He served as president of the Chiba Institute of Technology from June 2020 till his death.

[1] Matsui died of prostate cancer on 22 March 2023, at the age of 77.