Edward Valentine Shepard (1866 – 1937)[1] was an American auction bridge and contract bridge writer, authority, and teacher in the early twentieth century.
He was graduated from MIT in 1889 with a civil engineering degree, after which he worked in South America and Mexico as well as Massachusetts, also working for the United States Patent Office and teaching at Columbia University.
[2] Shepard's engineering training led him to apply mathematical analysis to bridge.
[2] Shepard was one of the twelve members of the Bridge Headquarters, organized in 1931[3] and representing bridge's "old guard" against the insurgent Ely Culbertson.
[5] Shepard died February 9, 1937, at home in Manhattan.