Peter R. Shaw was born June 8, 1956 in Columbus, OH. He received the S.B. degrees in physics and in earth and planetary sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, in 1978, and entered graduate school at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, San Diego, CA, where he studied seismology and received the Ph.D. degree in earth sciences in 1983.He joined the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution as a Postdoctoral Scholar, and has been an Assistant Scientist on the scientific staff in the Geology and Geophysics Department since 1985. His research interests include inversion of seismic waveform data, the study of fracture zone structure using satellite altimeter data, and the statistical characterization of seafloor morphology.
Dr. Shaw is a member of the American Geophysical Union.