Robert Arnold Alberty (1921–2014) was an American biophysical chemist, professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

For his work in the area of biochemical thermodynamics, Alberty was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1965.

[3] At the beginning of his career Alberty worked principally on aspects of electrophoresis in protein chemistry.

[6] He was among the first to consider the kinetics of reactions with more than one substrate,[7] and in the years that followed there was hardly any aspect of enzyme kinetics he did not touch, his work including, for example, studies of pH,[8] integrated rate equations,[9] reversible reactions,[9] effects of temperature,[10] effects of buffers and inhibitors,[11] and others.

[15] Although he was primarily concerned with single enzyme-catalysed reactions, Alberty also did some work with systems of more than one enzyme, such as the urea cycle.