William Richard Dickinson (October 26, 1931 – July 21, 2015) was a professor emeritus of geoscience at the University of Arizona and a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.

[3] Dickinson was born near Nashville, Tennessee, in 1931,[4] and grew up in Travellers Rest, a historic plantation house built by his great-great-grandfather Judge John Overton in 1799.

Dickinson's experience as a young adult riding on horseback through the nearby Santa Ynez Mountains, and observing the geography, inspired his interest in geology.

Dickinson enrolled at Stanford University in 1948, and graduated with a Bachelor's of Science in petroleum engineering in 1952 and a Ph.D in geology in 1958.

Dickinson's research includes studying the potsherds (historic or prehistoric fragments of pottery) of Pacific Oceana.