Alan Michael Garber (born May 7, 1955) is an American physician and health economist, who has served as the 31st president of Harvard University since August 2, 2024. Previously, he served as provost of Harvard University from 2011 to March 2024. Prior to joining Harvard, Garber was a faculty member at Stanford University.

Garber was born in Rock Island, Illinois, in 1955, to Jean and Harry Garber. His mother was a social worker, while his father owned a liquor store. Garber's twin sister, Deborah is an artist, and his older brother, David, made aliyah and lives in Jerusalem. Belonging to a Jewish family, Garber grew up attending synagogue and a Jewish summer camp. He graduated from Rock Island High School in 1973.

Garber received a Bachelor of Arts with a major in economics in 1976, a Master of Arts in economics in 1977, and a PhD in economics in 1982, all from Harvard University. While pursuing his PhD at Harvard, he enrolled simultaneously at Stanford University, where he received a Doctor of Medicine degree in 1983. He later reflected that he was "a reluctant and ambivalent pre-med" when starting college, switching his major from biochemistry to economics, but that his education led "eventually to a career that combined the two interests".

He completed his residency training in internal medicine at Harvard Medical School-affiliated Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston in 1986.

Garber began his career as an assistant professor at Stanford University in 1986. His research focused on cost-effectiveness in healthcare . While at Stanford, he also worked as a clinician at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Palo Alto. Garber's tenure at Stanford ended in 2011, when he left to succeed Steven Hyman as the provost of Harvard University on September 1, 2011. He served as provost until March 14, 2024, when John F. Manning took on the position on an interim basis.

Garber has held various positions and titles since joining Harvard, including the Mallinckrodt Professor of Health Care Policy at Harvard Medical School, Professor of Economics in the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Professor of Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School, and Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management in the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

He succeeded Claudine Gay as the president of Harvard University in 2024. Garber was initially appointed as an interim president, on January 2, 2024. On August 2, the Harvard Corporation announced that he would be the permanent president of the university for a fixed term of three years ending at the conclusion of the 2026–2027 academic year. He was installed as the 31st president of Harvard University on December 7, 2024, in a private ceremony at Menschel Hall, one of the Harvard Art Museums. In 2025, he was elected to the American Philosophical Society.

In July 2016, the Harvard University Office of the Provost launched a web page in response to efforts to unionize its graduate students. On August 23, 2016, following the Columbia decision that restored union rights to teaching and research assistants, the provost office wrote in an email to students, "we continue to believe that the relationship between students and the University is primarily about education, and that unionization will disrupt academic programs and freedoms, mentoring, and research at Harvard." Following a decision by the regional director of the National Labor Relations Board that Harvard was in violation of the Excelsior rule, Garber defended the university appeal to the National Labor Relations Board in Washington, D.C., writing that the university "believes that the November 2016 election results, which reflect the votes and voices of well-informed students, should stand, and has appealed the Regional Director's decision to the contrary".