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Stuart A. Umpleby (1944) is an American cybernetician and is a professor in the Department of Management and Director of the Research Program in Social and Organizational Learning in the School of Business at the George Washington University. Umpleby has made important contributions in the areas of cybernetics and systems theory, the philosophy of science, and management methods. Other interests have been demography, the year 2000 computer crisis, academic globalization, and the transitions in the post-communist countries.

Following his work on biological cybernetics and social cybernetics Umpleby suggested a way of unifying the philosophies of realism, constructivism, and pragmatism by combining world, description, and observer. Building on the work of E.A. Singer, Jr., C. West Churchman, and Russell L. Ackoff, Umpleby has suggested that, since managers are part of the system they seek to influence, methods rather than theories might be the most effective way to structure knowledge of management.