Robert Shear has a made an avocation of presenting to the public important characters from American history. He developed the Gerrit Smith Virtual Museum based on the unique collection of 19th century historical documents held at Syracuse University. On behalf of the National Park Service, he develo...

Robert Shear has a made an avocation of presenting to the public important characters from American history. He developed the Gerrit Smith Virtual Museum based on the unique collection of 19th century historical documents held at Syracuse University. On behalf of the National Park Service, he developed and the first full interpretive websites for the Women's Rights National Historical Park in Seneca Falls, New York and the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site in Anacostia, Virginia. He subsequently developed the popular repository of online history at NYHistory.com, hosting websites for the Harriet Tubman Home and the Central New York Freedom Trail Project, among many others. His first solo venture in print, Thomas Paine's The Age of Reason - Part Three reflects three years of research into the history of science, religion and human rights, supplementing a career long interest in these subjects. The book has earned praise for its style and scholarship both from Paine historians and from readers of popular literature. Mr. Shear holds a Masters degree from the School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University and completed his doctoral studies in Health Policy and Administration at the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill. In his forty year career in public service he spent several years as an independent consultant and has held leadership positions in state government and several nonprofit organizations. He currently resides in the high desert of the American Southwest.