Ian A. Shanks received his BSc in electrical engineering from Glasgow University. He received his PhD while working at the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment in Malvern, England. There, between 1973 and 1982, he achieved or contributed to numerous research advances that extended our knowledge of liquid crystals and pioneered today’s LCD technologies. For this research, he was awarded the 1984 Paterson Medal of the UK Institute of Physics and a best paper award from the Society for Information Display.

In 1982, Dr. Shanks joined Unilever to initiate research into biosensors. His research enabled LCD and biosensor technologies. In 1976, he published the first paper on 3D television using LCDs, and almost all blood glucose test strips used by diabetics are based on his 1982 invention of electrochemical, capillary-fill device (eCFD) biosensors at Unilever Research. Such test strips can be made inexpensively in large numbers using mass manufacturing technology adapted from that for digital watch LCDs. They are still the gold standard for self-testing to monitor diabetes, allowing many millions of patients with diabetes to monitor the disease and avoid its often-dire consequences.

As chief scientist of THORN EMI plc from 1986 to 1994, he had responsibility for the leadership of roughly 200 scientists, engineers, and industrial designers. This responsibility was further extended when he rejoined Unilever in 1994, where, as vice president of physical and engineering sciences, he served on a board that managed the corporate research program for a concern that employed around 250,000 people and had research laboratories in the United Kingdom, the United States, the Netherlands, India, and China.

Dr. Shanks retired as vice president of physical and engineering sciences at Unilever in 2003. He maintains some of his science and engineering interests. As a distinguished and inventive scientist and engineer, he has extensive research and management experience in industry and government and relevant experience in science education. His research and management expertise covers the physical and life sciences, knowledge management, and engineering. He also has experience in leading strategy formulation. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, the Royal Academy of Engineering, and the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Dr. Shanks was awarded the OBE for services to innovation in 2012. He has served on or chaired many senior committees for various organizations.

In 2019, after a 13-year-long legal battle, the UK Supreme Court, in a landmark decision, awarded Dr. Shanks substantial compensation from Unilever as a fair share of their outstanding benefit from licensing the eCFD patents and established legal precedent for how the UK 1977 Patents Act should be interpreted in the future, thus incentivizing future UK employee inventors. This was the first such award in over 30 years.

In 2020, Dr. Shanks was awarded the Royal Society’s Royal Medal in the Applied Sciences.