Robert Porter (December 18 1926 – June 9, 2021) was a neurosurgeon in California and a founding member of the Brain Research Institute who became Professor of Neurological Surgery at the University of California, Irvine, College of Medicine in 1969, then Professor Emeritus.
That was followed by residency training in neurological surgery at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Long Beach.
He joined the faculty of the UCLA School of Medicine, having appointments in both anatomy and neurological surgery.
In 1963 he was a lecturer and visiting neurosurgeon in the Department of Surgical Neurology at the University of Edinburgh, developing clinical and research techniques in stereotactic neurosurgery.
His clinical neurosurgical interests have been in spinal cord injury and functional stereotaxy.