Robert Neil Butler (January 21, 1927 – July 4, 2010) was an American physician, gerontologist, psychiatrist, and author, who was the first director of the National Institute on Aging.

Butler is known for his work on the social needs and the rights of the elderly and for his research on healthy aging and the dementias.

[4] Butler was a principal investigator of one of the first interdisciplinary, comprehensive, longitudinal studies of healthy community-residing older persons, conducted at the National Institute of Mental Health (1955–1966), which resulted in the landmark book Human Aging.

His research helped establish the fact that senility was not inevitable with aging, but is a consequence of disease.

[16] The award recognized his work in advancing the rights and needs of the nation's aging citizenry and enhancing the quality of life for elderly Americans.