She studied Biochemistry and Microbiology at the University of Cape Town, South Africa and received her Ph.D. in Virology from the University of Glasgow, Scotland where she worked on the glycoproteins of hepatitis C virus. Following her Ph.D. Dr. Shaw moved to the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York where she was a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Peter Palese. Dr. Shaw’s expertise is in the area of virus-host interactions and as a postdoctoral fellow she studied the interactions of Nipah virus with the host innate immune response and also conducted a study that revealed host proteins packaged into influenza virus particles.