José Fernando "Chepe" Escobar (born 20 December 1954, in Manizales, Colombia) was a Colombian mathematician known for his work on differential geometry and partial differential equations. He was professor at Cornell University. He completed his mathematical undergraduate program at Universidad del Valle, Colombia. He received a scholarship that permitted him to do a master in science studies in the Institute of Pure and Applied Mathematics (IMPA) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He died from cancer on 3 January 2004, at the age 49. Mathematician Fernando Codá Marques was a student of him.