American anthropologist (born 1949)
Gilbert H. Herdt (born February 24, 1949) is Emeritus Professor of Human Sexuality Studies and Anthropology and a Founder of the Department of Sexuality Studies and National Sexuality Resource Center at San Francisco State University. He founded the Summer Institute on Sexuality and Society at the University of Amsterdam (1996). He founded the PhD Program in Human Sexuality at the California Institute for Integral Studies, San Francisco (2013). He conducted long term field work among the Sambia people of Papua New Guinea, and has written widely on the nature and variation in human sexual expression in Papua New Guinea, Melanesia, and across culture. 
Biography.
Herdt is a research scholar, advocate for human sexuality, and a gay activist who has taught at Stanford University, the University of Chicago, the University of Amsterdam, and the University of Washington. In 2000, Herdt cofounded the Institute on Sexuality, Social Inequality and Health that studies all forms of sexuality and discrimination that affect community building, sexual culture and sexual health.
He specializes in the anthropology of sexuality, sexual orientation, sexual cultures, and the development of gender identity and sexual expression. His studies of the 'Sambia' people — a pseudonym he created — of Papua New Guinea analyzes how culture and society create sexual meanings and practices. The Sambia are unique in that in the past they require males to undergo three specific sexual phases in their lives. Boys must provide sexual service to young men, adolescents must then receive oral sex from boys, and males enter adulthood by becoming heterosexual.
Herdt also wrote about the binabinaaine of Kiribati and Tuvalu, describing how they are known for their performances and their ability to comment on the appearance and behaviour of Tuvaluan men. He also wrote that some Tuvaluans view binabinaaine as a "borrowing" from Kiribati, whence other "'undesirable' traits of Tuvaluan culture, like sorcery, are thought to have originated". He also described how, in Funafuti, young women are often friends with older binabinaaine.
In the United States, Herdt has also studied adolescents and their families, the emergence of HIV and gay culture, and the role that social policy plays in sexual health. 
He has written and edited some 36 books, and more than 100 scientific papers. He is also the general editor of "Worlds of Desire", and an associate editor of "Journal of Culture, Sexuality, and Health", "Journal of Men and Masculinities", and "Transaction: Journal of Social Science and Modern Society".
Awards.
Herdt is the recipient of various awards and research grants, including: