John David Lawson (born 1923) is an English physicist. He graduated from the University of Cambridge. He works at the E. Rutherford High Energy Laboratory (Chilton).
His research is in the field of accelerator physics and plasma physics. In 1957 he formulated the criterion for the confinement of a plasma at a given density and temperature for reaching the critical point in the energy balance of a thermonuclear reactor (the Lawson criterion). He is working on the creation of superconducting magnets for accelerators.