| Irwin I. Shapiro | |
| Birth Name: | Irwin Ira Shapiro[1] |
| Birth Place: | New York City, New York, U.S. |
| Nationality: | American |
| Fields: | Astrophysics |
| Alma Mater: | Cornell University Harvard University |
| Thesis Title: | Methods of Approximation for High Energy Nuclear Scattering |
| Thesis Url: | http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1955PhDT........17S |
| Thesis Year: | 1955 |
| Notable Students: | Thomas A. Herring Steven J. Ostro Alyssa A. Goodman |
| Known For: | Shapiro time delay |
Irwin Ira Shapiro is an American astrophysicist and Timken University Professor at Harvard University. He has been a professor at Harvard since 1982.[2] He was the director of the Center for Astrophysics Harvard & Smithsonian from 1982 to 2004.[3] [4]
A native of New York, Shapiro graduated from Brooklyn Technical High School in New York City. He later received his B.A. in Mathematics from Cornell University, and later a M.A. and Ph.D in Physics from Harvard University. He joined the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Lincoln Laboratory in 1954 and became a professor of physics there in 1967. In 1982, he took a position as professor and Guggenheim Fellow[5] at his alma mater, Harvard, and also became director of the Center for Astrophysics Harvard & Smithsonian. In 1997, he became the first Timken University Professor at the university.[2]
Shapiro's research interests include astrophysics, astrometry, geophysics, gravitation, including the use of gravitational lenses to assess the age of the universe.[6] In 1981, Edward Bowell discovered the 3832 main belt asteroid and it was later named after Shapiro by his former student Steven J. Ostro.[7]