Archives West Finding Aid

Charles Gardner Shaw was born in 1917 at Springfield, Massachusetts. He attended Miami University of Florida and Ohio Wesleyan University, graduating from the latter with the B.S. degree in 1938. In 1947 he received his M.S. from Pennsylvania State University and in 1949 he received his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin. Mr. Shaw began to work in the Department of Plant Pathology at Washington State University in 1947, later becoming Professor and Chairman of that department. While he was teaching and serving as Plant Pathologist in this department, he taught forest pathology and advised many graduate students on research into diseases of forest trees, an area in which he conducted extensive research projects in the late 1940s and through the 1950s. Much of this research was conducted in the Spokane area and was especially concerned with Ponderosa pine stands, then affected by a variety of conditions described simply as pine blight. Later Shaw's principal research interest focused on mycology, especially the downy mildews.

The later part of Shaw's career at Wahington State University was heavily concerned with projects in developing countries, partly as an agricultural scientist and partly as an administrator. He began this work began in the middle-1970s in India. In the following years, Shaw participated in several projects, the most important of which was in Jordan, where he served as Chief of Party for an international team of agricultural scientists working in the Jordanian agricultural university. After his tour in Jordan, Shaw returned to his teaching position at Washington State University until his retirement in 1983.