Octavio Augusto Novaro Peñalosa (4 July 1939 – 6 March 2018) was a prominent theoretical physicist specialized in theoretical catalysis, physical chemistry, biophysics and geophysics. He received the National Prize for Arts and Sciences in 1983 and became the first Mexican researcher to receive the UNESCO Science Prize in 1993. Since 1995 he was also one of the forty lifetime members of The National College.