Susan D. Shaw (October 24, 1943 – January 27, 2022) was an American environmental health scientist, marine toxicologist, explorer, ocean conservationist, and author. A Doctor of Public Health, she was a professor in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at the School of Public Health at the State University of New York at Albany, and Founder/President of the Shaw Institute, a nonprofit scientific institution with a mission to improve human and ecological health through innovative science and strategic partnerships. Shaw is globally recognized for pioneering high-impact environmental research on ocean pollution, climate change, oil spills, and plastics that has fueled public policy over three decades. In 1983, with landscape photographer Ansel Adams, she published Overexposure, the first book to document the health hazards of photographic chemicals. Shaw is credited as the first scientist to show that brominated flame retardant chemicals used in consumer products have contaminated marine mammals and commercially important fish stocks in the northwest Atlantic Ocean. She became the first scientist to dive into the Gulf of Mexico oil slick following the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion to investigate the impacts of chemical dispersants used in response to the spill.
Recognized as an outspoken voice on emerging contaminants like plastic, Shaw traveled globally to raise awareness on toxic legacy of man-made chemicals and its impact on public health and the environment.
Education and early career
Shaw was born in Dallas, Texas, the daughter of Edward Carrington and Lois (née Bonner) Shaw.
She received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Texas in 1967 with a major in Plan II, an interdisciplinary honors program modeled after the Harvard Society of Fellows Program. She was selected for the UT-Chilean Exchange Program in 1964, and spent a year in Chile as a Fulbright Scholar. Shaw earned two degrees from Columbia University: an MFA degree in Film in 1970, and a doctorate in Public Health/Environmental Health Sciences (Dr.P.H.) in 1999.
In 1980, Ansel Adams commissioned her to write Overexposure, published in 1983 as the first book to document the health hazards of photographic chemicals used in the darkroom. A second edition of the book was published in 1991.
Shaw founded the Shaw Institute in Blue Hill, Maine in 1990 following the deaths of 20,000 harbor seals inhabiting polluted waters of northwestern Europe. This wildlife “signal” event was followed by other mass die-offs of marine mammals in polluted marine regions.
Advancing understanding of the impacts of toxic chemicals on marine mammal health became the Institute's research focus over the next two decades. In the Institute's mission to "discover and expose environmental threats to people and wildlife through innovative science," its focus areas are human exposure, plastics and microplastics, marine wildlife exposure, oil spill response, and Maine coastal monitoring.
Research
For three decades, Shaw's work focused on the health effects of environmental chemical exposure in marine wildlife and humans.
In 2000, the Shaw Institute began its long-term research focused on marine sentinel species to characterize the extent of contamination of the northwest Atlantic marine ecosystem from Maine to New York. Funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), this region-wide effort has produced a large body of data on a wide range of persistent organic pollutants, including flame retardants, in marine mammals and fish that has placed the region in a global perspective. This work has shown that levels of toxic chemicals, such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), in northwest Atlantic harbor seals are among the highest in the world.
In 2007, Shaw was credited as the first scientist to show that brominated flame retardant chemicals used in household and consumer products have contaminated marine mammals and fish in the northwest Atlantic Ocean. This information helped support toxics policy reform in the state of Maine when the Legislature banned Deca-BDE from household products as of 2010.