Jesse William Lazear (1866-1900) was an American physician. He received his Bachelor of Arts in 1889 from Johns Hopkins University and his PhD in Medicine in 1892 from the Medical School at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. He did his specialization in Paris at the Institut Pasteur. He worked at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore where he studied malaria and yellow fever. In 1900 he reported for duty as the assistant surgeon at Columbia Barracks (Quemados, Cuba) for the United States Army where he become a member of the Yellow Fever Board studying the transmission of the disease. He conducted part of his study on himself. He allowed himself to be bitten by yellow fever-infected mosquitoes and died of the disease at age 34.