Tim Stearns (born 1961 in Huntington, New York) is an American biologist and university administrator, and is the Dean of Graduate and Postgraduate Studies, Vice President of Education, and Head of Laboratory at The Rockefeller University. Stearns was formerly the Frank Lee and Carol Hall Professor in the Department of Biology at Stanford University, with appointments in the Department of Genetics and the Cancer Center in the Stanford Medical School. Stearns served as chair of the Department of Biology at Stanford as well as Acting Dean of Research and Senior Associate Vice Provost of Research. Stearns is an HHMI Professor, and is a member of JASON, a scientific advisory group. He has served on the editorial boards of The Journal of Cell Biology, Genetics and Molecular Biology of the Cell.