William John Sinclair
William John Sinclair was a geologist and vertebrate paleontologist, noteworthy for his collaboration with Walter W. Granger on stratigraphy in New Mexico and Wyoming.
Sinclair received in 1904 his M.S. and Ph.D. from U. C. Berkeley, where John C. Merriam was his doctoral supervisor. After receiving his Ph.D., Sinclair went to Princeton University as a Teaching Fellow and was promoted in 1905 to Instructor in Geology, in 1916 to Assistant Professor, in 1928 to Associate Professor, and in 1930 to Professor.
Sinclair was a protégé of William B. Scott and secured funding for Princeton's William Berryman Scott Fund for research in vertebrate paleontology. Sinclair willed his large petroleum-derived estate to establish Princeton's Sinclair Professorship of Vertebrate Paleontology. The first holder of this professorship was Glenn Lowell Jepsen.
