Her research focuses on issues of race, gender, sexuality, and class in American art, particularly as they relate to conflict.
[10][11][12] She curated Samba Sessao: Afro-Brazilian Art and Film for the Arthur Ross Gallery at the University of Pennsylvania in 2012.
[14] She has co-created a number of exhibitions with her students, including Trouble in Paradise: The Art of Polynesian Warfare at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in 2006.
[17] In 2020, as a senior historian at the National Portrait Gallery, she organized Every Eye is Upon Me, an exhibit which explores the lives of the first ladies of the United States.
In 2016, Shaw organized a symposium at the National Portrait Gallery on "Racial Masquerade in American Art and Culture".