Lakshman Kumar Mahapatra (29 October 1929 – 1 June 2020) was an Indian anthropologist born in Odisha. He graduated in anthropology from the University of Calcutta and received a doctorate from the University of Hamburg. He was Vice-Chancellor of Utkal University in 1986 and Sambalpur University in 1989. While heading the anthropology department at Utkal University, he was the first academic in India to start a course on Southeast Asia in the regular curriculum at the university level in India. He died in Bhubaneswar on June 1, 2020 at the age of 90.