John Lewis Heilbron was an American historian of science best known for his work in the history of physics and the history of astronomy. 

He was Professor of History and Vice-Chancellor Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, senior research fellow at Worcester College, Oxford, and visiting professor at Yale University and the California Institute of Technology. He edited the academic journal Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences for twenty-five years.

Heilbron attended Lowell High School in San Francisco, California, and was a member of the Lowell Forensic Society. He received his A.B. and M.A. degrees in physics and his Ph.D. in history from the University of California, Berkeley. He was Thomas Kuhn’s graduate student in the 1960s when Kuhn was writing The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.

Heilbron was a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.