Shaw attended high school in Bethesda, Maryland, during the Sputnik cold war era during which technology was rapidly improving[citation needed].

This program run by International Business Machines (IBM) and was a chance for student to explore fields outside of the normal curriculum.

After her graduation at Rice University, Shaw had started her career in industry, working as systems programmer at the Research Analysis Corporation.

[10] Shaw's main area of research interest is software engineering, including architectural, educational and historical aspects.

"[12]In this work Garlan and Shaw "describe an architecture of a system as a collection of computational components together with a description of the interactions between these components—the connectors.