James M. Pipas is an American molecular virologist. He currently holds the Herbert W. and Grace Boyer Chair in Molecular Biology at the University of Pittsburgh.^[1]

Pipas is a graduate of the University of Southern Mississippi,^[2] and completed his Ph.D. in molecular biophysics at Florida State University in 1975, under the supervision of Robert H. Reeves.^[1][2] After postdoctoral research at Baylor College with John H. Wilson, and at Johns Hopkins University with Daniel Nathans, he joined the University of Pittsburgh faculty in 1980.^[1]