John Heskett (26 May 1937 – 25 February 2014) was a British writer and lecturer on the economic, political, cultural and human value of industrial design. Heskett taught primary in the fields of design history and design thinking, and was a professor at the Institute of Design, Illinois Institute of Technology (1989–2004) and the School of Design at Hong Kong Polytechnic University (2004–11), where he became the acting dean (2011–12). He was also a visiting professor at various universities in Turkey, Japan, Chile, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, and Finland.