Irwin Ira Shapiro is an American astrophysicist and Timken University Professor at Harvard University. He has been a professor at Harvard since 1982.^[2] He was the director of the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian from 1982 to 2004.^[3][4]

A native of New York, Shapiro graduated from Brooklyn Technical High School in New York City. He later received his B.A. in Mathematics from Cornell University, and later a M.A. and Ph.D in Physics from Harvard University. He joined the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Lincoln Laboratory in 1954 and became a professor of physics there in 1967. In 1982, he took a position as professor and Guggenheim Fellow^[5] at his alma mater, Harvard, and also became director of the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian. In 1997, he became the first Timken University Professor at the university.^[2]

Shapiro's research interests include astrophysics, astrometry, geophysics, gravitation, including the use of gravitational lenses to assess the age of the universe.^[6] In 1981, Edward Bowell discovered the 3832 main belt asteroid and it was later named after Shapiro by his former student Steven J. Ostro.^[7]