Earl Shaw

Earl Shaw was born in Clarksdale, Mississippi in 1937. Shaw spent his early years in rural Mississippi, living on Hopson Plantation where he attended a three-room school. His teachers did not have college degrees, but he considers his primary education to have been excellent. At the age of twelve, he and his mother moved to Chicago, Illinois. Earl Shaw attended Crane Technical High School, where he was first introduced to physics. Although the school did not provide a good general education or general guidance program, it did inspire Shaw to pursue a career in physics. He received his B.S., Physics from the University of Illinois (1960), M.A. from Dartmouth College (1964), and his Ph.D. (Physics) from University of California, Berkeley in 1969. Dr. Shaw worked as a Research Scientist for Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey, where he was the co-inventor of the spin-flip tunable laser. Dr. Shaw is currently Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Rutgers University, Newark, New Jersey.