Cristián Samper (born September 25, 1965) is a Colombian-American tropical biologist specializing in conservation biology and environmental policy.

The youngest of four, he was born to Armando Samper Gnecco, an agronomist and economist from Colombia, and Jean Kutschbach, an American from New York.

He then moved to the United States to attend Harvard University, where he graduated in 1989 with a M.Sc., and received his Ph.D. in Biology in 1992 with his dissertation Natural disturbance and plant establishment in an Andean cloud forest.

He led the Colombian delegation to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, and served as Chairman of the Subsidiary Body of Scientific, Technical, and Technological Advice (SBSTTA) from 1999 to 2001.

[10] In July 2020, Samper issued a public apology for the treatment of Ota Benga,[11] a young Central African from the Mbuti people of present-day Democratic Republic of Congo who was exhibited at the St. Louis World's Fair and later displayed at the Bronx Zoo.