Born in New Zealand in 1913, Bruce Stinear was a geologist most famous for his work in Antarctica. After graduating from Canterbury College in 1936, he spent approximately 15 months prospecting for oil in New Guinea. During World War II, he was a navigator with the Royal New Zealand Air Force. After the war, he served as petroleum technologist with the Australian Bureau of Mineral Resources and Chemist in charge of the chemicals and engineering section of the Department of Defense Production in Melbourne before being appointed as geologist for the Australian Antarctic Expedition in 1953. He was the geologist at Davis and Mawson Station for several seasons in the period 1954–59. Stinear Island and Stinear Lake in Antarctica are named for him.