Peter Bernard Shaw was born October 2, 1932 in Portsmouth, New Hampshire and passed away September 10, 2023 in State College, Pennsylvania after a long and distinguished career as a Professor of Physics at Penn State University. In between, he lived life to the fullest, attending Harvard, where he received an AB in Physics, and a PhD in Physics from the Carnegie Institute of Technology. He also did post doctorate work at Rice University and Penn State before becoming first an Assistant Professor and then an Associate Professor. He worked on a variety of theoretical problems related to condensed matter physics, astrophysics and biophysics.
Peter served in the U.S. Marine Corp, enlisting in 1951 where he serve in the communications section of a Marine tank company in the last year of the Korean War where he obtained the rank of Sargent.
Peter married Karin Oldberg on June 22, 1957 after meeting on a street corner. Together they had 4 children, Christopher (Cynthia), Jessica Shaw White (Daniel Robert White), Hope Shaw Scannel (Jamie) and Sarah Shaw Murray.
Peter had two siblings-sister Martha Shaw and brother John Shaw, both of whom predeceased him.
Peter also was very heavily involved in various peace movements, even being arrested on at least one occasion. He was a lifetime member of Veterans For Peace and traveled to El Salvador and Cuba to experience and learn about the consequences of war on local people. He was a founding member of the State College Peace Center in 1994 and even ran its human rights film series. He was a member of the Board of Directors of CenterPease, a nonprofit dedicated to helping Centre County prison inmates lead productive lives upon release from prison, He served as President from 1995-1998 and Treasurer from 1998-2016. He was actively involved in the Penn State Karate Club, earning a black belt in Isshin-Ryu Karate and later served as the faculty advisor for many years. He loved playing the bag pipes and was a founding member of the Nittany Highland Pipe Band and he played the pipes with them from 1973-2002. From 2001-2005 he played Scottish smallpipes, Highland pipes and Irish uilleann pipes in the State College Celtic band, Clannish. Peter played the bagpipes at the wedding of his daughter Jessica to Daniel R. White. Peter was also a cat lover, sharing his home with Finbar, Seamus, Siobhan and Sinead.
Our Family-Our History 