She works at the University of Virginia as a research professor in the Social and Decision Analytics Division of the Biocomplexity Institute and Initiative.
[1] Shipp's parents were both Air Force officers, and her mother was a high school teacher and government librarian.
At the Bureau of Labor Statistics, she became chief of the Branch of Information and Analysis in the Division of Consumer Expenditure Surveys in 1983.
[3] She retired from federal service in 2008, and took a position as senior research staff in the Science and Technology Policy Institute.
[3] In 2013 she moved to Virginia Tech as founding deputy director and research professor in the Social and Decision Analytics Laboratory.