Astrophysicist and Educator

Irwin Shapiro, Timken University Professor at Harvard, was director of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics for over 21 years. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. A recipient of prestigious awards from six different scientific organizations in different fields, he received the 2013 Einstein Prize of the American Physical Society for his contributions to science – “the Shapiro time delay” – which correctly predicted the slowing effect that mass has upon the propagation of light. In 2020, he was elected a Legacy Fellow of the American Astronomical Society.