William Theodore de Bary (born August 9, 1919),published as Wm Theodore de Bary, is an East Asian studies expert John Mitchell Mason Professor of the University and Provost Emeritus at Columbia University.De Bary graduated from Columbia College in 1941, where he was a student in the first year of Columbia's famed Literature Humanities course. He then briefly took up graduate studies at Harvard University before the US entered the Second World War. De Bary left the academy to serve in American military intelligence in the Pacific Theatre. Upon his return, he resumed his studies at Columbia, where he earned his MA in 1948 and PhD in 1953.

He has edited numerous books of original source material relating to East Asian (primarily Japanese and Chinese) literature, history, and culture, as well as making the case, in his book Nobility and Civility, for the universality of Asian values. He is recognized as essentially creating the field of Neo-Confucian studies.In 2014,he received National Humanities Medal award.