Until recently, Berlin was Graham Perdue Professor of Anthropology at the University of Georgia, where he was also director of the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies and co-director for the Laboratories of Ethnobiology.

He originally received his Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1964.

Select publications

• Berlin, Brent. 1992. Ethnobiological classification: principles of categorization of plants and animals in traditional societies. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0691094691
• Berlin, Brent. 1995. "Huambisa Sound Symbolism." In Sound symbolism, edited by Leanne Hinton, Johanna Nichols, and John J. Ohala. Cambridge [England]: Cambridge University Press.
• Berlin, Elois Ann, and Brent Berlin. 1996. Medical ethnobiology of the Highland Maya of Chiapas, Mexico: the gastrointestinal diseases. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.