William John Sinclair (1877–1935) was a geologist and vertebrate paleontologist, noteworthy for his collaboration with Walter W. Granger on stratigraphy in New Mexico and Wyoming.[1]
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.[2]
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.[2] The first holder of this professorship was Glenn Lowell Jepsen (1903–1974).[3]