Masatoshi Nagatomi (September 1, 1926 – June 3, 2000) was a Japanese professor of Buddhist studies at Harvard University.
Nagatomi was fifteen years old at the time of the Attack on Pearl Harbor, having traveled alone to visit relatives in rural Yamaguchi Prefecture.
He would occasionally receive letters from his father through the International Red Cross, providing news about his parents and sisters.
Nagatomi was conscripted to the Kobe Shipyard, where he and his colleagues suffered harsh labor conditions and starvation.
With a thirty-eight year tenure, he became affiliated with the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, Harvard Divinity School, and the Center for the Study of World Religions.
He was instrumental in developing the field of Buddhist Studies, and several contemporary scholars studied under his guidance, such as Robert Thurman, Stanley Weinstein, Jeffrey Hopkins, Jan Nattier, Alfred Bloom, Joseph Roccasalvo, Peter N. Gregory, Andrew Olendzki and Duncan Ryūken Williams.