David Hestenes (* 1933), American theoretical physicist and science educator
Hestenes, Halloun, Wells, and Swackhamer developed the first of the concept inventories to be widely disseminated, the Force Concept Inventory (FCI).
The Force Concept Inventory is a test measuring mastery of concepts commonly taught in a first semester of physics developed by Hestenes, Halloun, Wells, and Swackhamer (1985).
While a professor, Hestenes supervised the thesis research of 34 students, among them Glen Culler, Richard Tapia and Jesse Wilkins, Jr..
Hestenes, Stiefel, and Lanczos, all from the Institute for Numerical Analysis at the National Bureau of Standards, initiate the development of Krylov subspace iteration methods.