Austin Beatty Williams (October 17, 1919 – October 27, 1999) was an American carcinologist, "the acknowledged expert on and leader in studies of the systematics of eastern American decapod crustaceans".^[1]

Austin B. Williams was born on October 17, 1919, in Plattsburg, Missouri, the eldest of three children to Oliver Perry Williams and Lucy Sell.^[1] He was educated at McPherson College and the University of Kansas, gaining his Ph.D. in 1951.^[1] He then worked at the University of North Carolina Institute of Fisheries Research, the University of Illinois, before gaining a position in the systematics laboratory of the National Marine Fisheries Service, based at the Smithsonian Institution.^[1] He was married and had one son and two grandchildren. He died of cancer at Falls Church, Virginia, on October 27, 1999.^[1]

Williams' first scientific paper, published in 1952, described six new species of freshwater crayfish from the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas, Missouri and Oklahoma;^[2] he continued to publish until his death in 1999, accruing 118 publications in that time.^[1] His most important works^[1] include monographs on the marine decapod crustaceans of the Carolinas,^[3] on the decapods of the Atlantic coast of the United States,^[4] and on the lobsters of the world's oceans.^[5][6] He won several awards, including the Crustacean Society's Excellence in Research Award^[7] and the American Fisheries Society's Oscar Elton Sette Award.^[1]