Lawrence Mark Lidsky (1935–2002) was a professor of nuclear engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Lidsky was born in Brooklyn, New York, on October 15, 1935. He did his undergraduate studies at Cornell University, graduating in 1958, and earned a doctorate in nuclear engineering from MIT in 1962 with a thesis entitled "Plasma Generation and Acceleration", after which he joined the MIT faculty. He died March 1, 2002 in Newton, Massachusetts, after struggling with cancer for many years.