Bruce Elliot Tapper (born in the United States) is a social anthropologist, journalist, writer, and editor.
He has published numerous articles on Telugu society and culture in Andhra Pradesh, and shadow puppets as a form of entertainment.
He obtained his Ph.D. in social anthropology in 1976 from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.
He then returned to the United States, where he became a seminar associate of the Southern Asian Institute, Columbia University, New York City.
He was an editor at the Smithsonian Associates Program in the early 1980s and then had a career as an editor at the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian's National Museum of Asian Art, the American Occupational Therapy Association, and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.