Harry Jindrich Benda was a Czechoslovakian-born American full professor at Yale University. He specialised in Indonesian politics. Born to a Jewish family in Liberec, Czechoslovakia, he was sent to Java by his father to escape Nazism. He was the first director of the Institute for Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore. The Association for Asian Studies' prize for first book in Southeast Asian studies is named in his honour. Benda emigrated to the United States, becoming a naturalised citizen in 1960. He died in New Haven, Connecticut on October 26, 1971, at the age of 51.