Robert Arbuckle Berner (November 25, 1935 – January 10, 2015) was an American scientist known for his contributions to the modeling of the carbon cycle.

[5] In 1962, Berner won a fellowship to do research at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography in San Diego, California.

Beginning in 1965, he taught at Yale University where he became the Alan M. Bateman Professor in 1987, a position he held until his retirement in 2007.

[5] Berner's early research focused on the application of chemical thermodynamics and kinetics on sediments and sedimentary rocks.

In 1980, Berner authored Early Diagenesis: A Theoretical Approach which was quoted so often that the Institute for Scientific Information declared it a Science Citation Classic.