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]}

Career

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]

Recognition

Honors and awards

• Albert A. Michelson Medal from the Franklin Institute (1975) ^[8]
• Dannie Heineman Prize for Astrophysics from the American Astronomical Society (1983)
• Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement (1984) ^[9]
• Brouwer Award from the American Astronomical Society's Division on Dynamical Astronomy (1988)
• Charles A. Whitten Medal from the American Geophysical Union (1991)
• William Bowie Medal from the American Geophysical Union (1993)
• Albert Einstein Medal from the Albert Einstein Society (1994)
• Gerard P. Kuiper Prize from the American Astronomical Society's Division for Planetary Sciences (1997)
• Einstein Prize from the American Physical Society (2013) ^[10]
• Elected Member of the American Philosophical Society in 1998. ^[11]
• Elected a Legacy Fellow of the American Astronomical Society in 2020. ^[12]

Eponyms

• Shapiro time delay, discovered by Shapiro in 1964
• 3832 Shapiro, asteroid named after Shapiro in 1981

References

External links

• Harvard profile
• Oral history interview transcript with Irwin I. Shapiro on 23 April 2020, American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library & Archives
• Shapiro papers from 1965-1990 from the Smithsonian Institution Archives