James J. Christensen (1931-) was the department chair of the chemical engineering department at Brigahm Young University.

James J. Christensen was born April 30, 1931 to James J. and Arline Hearty Christensen in Salt Lake City. He graduated from East High School in 1948 and attended the University of Utah where he received a B.S. degree in 1953 and an M.S. degree in 1955, both in chemical engineering. He married Virginia Bills June 10, 1952 in Salt Lake; the marriage was later solemnized in the Salt Lake Temple, and blessed with five children, Mark, Larry, Blake, Scott, and Holly. After earning his doctorate degree from Carnegie-Mellon University in 1958, he joined the chemical engineering department at Brigham Young University, serving as department chairman from 1959 to 1961.

He was a visiting scientist at Oxford University in 1965 and at the Polytechnical Institute-Mexico in 1973, and was a recipient of an NIH career development award from 1967 to 1972.

Professor Christensen has written or edited twelve books, contributed chapters in ten others, and co-authored fifteen major review articles. He has also published over 250 research articles in a wide variety of journals. He was a co-founder of the Thermochemical Institute at BYU in 1969 and served on the board of directors from then until 1985. In 1977 he co-founded what has since become the international conference dealing with the chemistry of macrocylic molecules.

He developed a student course in creativity that has also been presented at various chemical companies. In addition, he taught several hundred undergraduates, and helped direct 20 Ph.D. and 45 M.S. graduate students.

He was the Sigma Xi annual lecturer at BYU in 1966 and the Seventh Annual Faculty Lecturer (outstanding faculty member at BYU) in 1970. He received Karl G. Maeser awards for research (1967) and teaching (1981), the Huffman award for outstanding thermochemists, the 1977 Utah Award for outstanding contribution in the field of chemistry, and was named outstanding faculty member of the College of Engineering Sciences and Technology in 1979. In August 1987 he also received the national 3M Award from Outstanding Achievement in Chemical Engineering.