John Z. Kiss (born 1960) is an American biologist known for his work on the gravitational and space biology of plants. Kiss is dean of the College of Arts & Sciences at the University of North Carolina Greensboro. Previously, he was a professor of biology and dean of the Graduate School at the University of Mississippi. and distinguished professor and chair of the botany department at Miami University. He has worked with NASA since 1987 and served as principal investigator on eight spaceflight experiments on the Space Shuttle, the former Russian space station Mir, and on the International Space Station. His research focuses on the sensory physiology of plants in space. He received the NASA Outstanding Public Leadership Medal in 2014. In 2021, Asteroid Kiss 8267 was named in his honor, a re