Earl H. Pritchard (June 5, 1907 – May 9, 1995) was an American scholar of China and one of the founders of the Association for Asian Studies and served as its president. Pritchard was born on June 5, 1907, in Pullman, Washington, where he spent his childhood on the farm of his father, Thomas Pritchard. He attended Washington State College and graduated with his B.A. in 1928. He then attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where completed his M.A. in 1929. Returning to Pullman in 1930, he applied for a Rhodes Scholarship and became the second student from Washington State College to win the scholarship. He spent three years at the University of Oxford and was awarded his PhD in history in 1933.