Robert Bennett Bean (March 24, 1874 in Gala, Virginia^[1] –1944) was an associate professor of anatomy and ethnologist adept to craniometry and the concept of "race", whose scientific work was discredited by his mentor but who nonetheless became a professor at the University of Virginia and remained so until his death.^[2]

Bean, through his mother, was descended from the First Families of Virginia, including colonist and land owner William Randolph. He studied medicine and anatomy and obtained a B.S. in medicine, followed by an M.D. in anatomy in 1904.

Bean became a professor of anatomy at numerous universities, including the University of Michigan (1905–1907), the Philippine Medical School of Manila (1908) and the Tulane University of Louisiana (1910–1916). In 1916 he accepted a position as an associate professor at the University of Virginia and remained so until his death. He became the councilor of the American Anthropological Association in 1919 and was also a regional chairman for the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1926). He is buried at the University of Virginia cemetery.^[3]

He is best remembered for his racist ethnological work The Races of Man (1932).^[4]

• Racial Anatomy of the Philippine Islanders (1910)
• The Races of Man. Differentiation and Dispersal of Man (1932, 2nd Ed. 1935)
• The Peopling of Virginia (1938)