J. Karl Hedrick (August 26, 1944 – February 22, 2017) was an American control theorist and a Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. He made seminal contributions in nonlinear control and estimation. Prior to joining the faculty at the University of California, Berkeley he was a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1974 to 1988. Hedrick received a bachelor's degree in Engineering Mechanics from the University of Michigan (1966) and a M.S. and Ph.D from Stanford University (1970, 1971).