I havelived in Montana, Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Utah, Switzerland, and Japan. Most of my young years were spent in Fairbanks, Alaska, where my father was a physics professor at the Geophysical Institute of the University of Alaska Fairbanks. 

My career has taken me on a trip through the Rocky Mountains:

 Dr Shaw flying with fish lidar

From 1989 to 2001, I worked at the Earth System Research Laboratories (formerly Wave Propagation Laboratory and Environmental Technology Laboratory) at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in Boulder, Colorado.

A NOAA fellowship gave me the chance to study at the renowned Optical Sciences Center in Tucson, Arizona, where I wrote my Ph.D. dissertation on laser remote sensing advised by John Reagan (IEEE Fellow) and Jim Churnside (OSA Fellow). In 2001 I joined the faculty at Montana State University.

I love playing music (primarily bass and guitar) and photographing natural optical phenomena around the world. I am the author of a photo-rich book, Optics in the Air: Observing optical phenomena through airplane windows, which is available through SPIE and Amazon.

 Dr Shaw playing bass for optics education