Austin Beatty Williams (October 17, 1919 – October 27, 1999) was an American carcinologist, "the acknowledged expert on and leader in studies of the systematics of eastern American decapod crustaceans".
[1] He then worked at the University of North Carolina Institute of Fisheries Research, the University of Illinois, before gaining a position in the systematics laboratory of the National Marine Fisheries Service, based at the Smithsonian Institution.
[1] Williams' first scientific paper, published in 1952, described six new species of freshwater crayfish from the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas, Missouri and Oklahoma;[2] he continued to publish until his death in 1999, accruing 118 publications in that time.
[1] His most important works[1] include monographs on the marine decapod crustaceans of the Carolinas,[3] on the decapods of the Atlantic coast of the United States,[4] and on the lobsters of the world's oceans.
[1] Austin B. Williams described or co-described 101 new taxa of decapod crustaceans, from the rank of subspecies to superfamily (obelisks mark fossil taxa):[1] One genus and several species were named by other scientists in honor of Williams.