Barbara Ramsay Shaw is the William T. Miller Distinguished Emeritus Professor of Chemistry at Duke University.

Shaw received her post-doctoral training from Kensal van Holde, professor of biochemistry and member of the National Academy of Sciences at Oregon State University.

Shaw studied the spontaneous formation of helix coils in her peptide sequences using optical rotatory dispersion.

[4] She has studied the chemical reactivity of DNA, and applied synthetic chemistry to gene expression, signal transduction, and cancer treatment.

Among her students was Paul Farmer, professor at Harvard Medical School and founder of Partners in Health.