Ian Shaw

Background

About Ian Shaw

Ian Shaw is an academic, author and broadcaster. His expertise is toxicology and food safety. Appointed Prof. of Toxicology, U of Canterbury (2009), before this he was Pro Vice-Chancellor (Science). BSc Biochem, U of Bath (1st class Hons), PhD Biochem, U of Birmingham and DSc U of Bath. Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and Royal College of Pathologists. He was a JP in the UK. His career has led him from the 1st UK lectureship in toxicology (University College London,1981–1985), Senior Clinical Scientist (Boehringer Ingelheim, 1985–1987), Head of Toxicology Group (Central Vet. Lab, 1987–1992), and Prof. of Toxicology and Head of Applied Biology (University of Central Lancashire, In he left the UK for NZ to be National Food Safety Programme Manager (ESR). He was a member of the UK’s Working Party on Natural Toxicants in Food, Working Party on Veterinary Residues, Advisory Committee on Animal Feedingstuffs, and Advisory Committee on Pesticides. He was Visiting Consultant Toxicologist to Preston Health Authority (1995 and and Chairman of the UK Pesticide Residues Committee (1994 – He was a member of the NZ Food Safety Advisory Board and is a member of the NZ Food Safety Academy. He was a member of the NZ Folate Advisory Panel, the Royal Society of NZ's Health and Climate Change Group, and is a member of the NZ Drug Driving Advisory Panel. He has written approximately 170 papers, written for newspapers, appeared on TV and radio and given two TEDx talks He holds a patent, and co-authored Principles of Environmental Toxicology (Taylor & Francis,1998). His second book, Is it Safe to Eat?(Springer, 2004) was made into a TV series; this evolved into TVNZ’s What’s really in our food? for which Ian was the science advisor and science presenter. His latest book, Food Safety was published by Wiley-Blackwell (2012) and went to 2nd edition in 2018. He received the 2009 NZ Association of Scientists Communicator’s Award and the Canterbury Students’ Association Science Lecturer of the Year in 2009, 2013, 2014, 2016 and 2020, and Supervisor of the Year in 2018.