Levy (1924 – 29 August 2003, Asolo, Veneto, Italy) was an American psychiatrist and anthropologist known for his fieldwork in Tahiti and Nepal and on the cross-cultural study of emotions.
Robert Levy initially trained as a psychoanalytic psychiatrist and had a private practice in psychiatry for several years[2] before he became involved in an ethnographic research project in the Society Islands (Tahiti), organized by anthropologist Douglas Oliver.
From 1964 to 1966 he was a senior scholar in the Institute of Advanced Projects at the East–West Center and research associate in anthropology at Bishop Museum, Honolulu.
In 1969 he took a faculty position as professor in the newly established anthropology department at the University of California, San Diego, where he taught for many years.
[7] A number of articles relating to his research, as well as a brief memorial written by his wife, were published in a special volume of Ethos (December 2005, Vol.