John Nelson Howard (February 27, 1921 – April 15, 2015) was president of the Optical Society of America in 1991. He was the founding editor of the scientific journal Applied Optics.  Howard was also a chief scientist of the Air Force Geophysics Laboratory.
He was a Fellow of the Optical Society and received the OSA Distinguished Service Award in 1987.
In his later years he was a contributing editor to Optics and Photonics News (OPN).