Brian Andrew Lang FRSE (b. 1945) is a Scottish social anthropologist who served as deputy chairman of the British Library and Principal of the University of St Andrews.Lang was born on 2 December 1945 in Edinburgh and educated at the Royal High School of Edinburgh and the University of Edinburgh where he studied social anthropology, graduating MA in 1968, and PhD in 1974. He lectured in social anthropology for some years at Aarhus University, Denmark.