William Albert Shear (born 1942) is Trinkle Professor Emeritus at Hampden-Sydney College, Virginia.
He is a spider and myriapod expert who has published more than 200 scientific articles primarily on harvestman and millipede taxonomy.
While at Harvard, Shear completed a revision of the millipede family Cleidogonidae and reclassification of the order Chordeumatida.
[1] He is an expert in Paleozoic arthropods, and has published several papers on fossil millipedes,[2] centipedes, and spiders.
He lives in Farmville, Virginia, and is an avid iris gardener and Godan (fifth degree black belt) in Shōrin-ryū Shōrinkan traditional Okinawan karate.