Ian Shipsey is a particle physicist distinguished for contributions to the flavour problem, the Standard Model's inability to explain three generations of fermions. He made crucial contributions to the most precise determination of four of the nine weak force quark couplings (with CLEO/CLEO-c at Cornell), observed rare b-quark decay processes (with CMS at LHC) and contributed to evidence for Higgs-field generation of the muon mass (with ATLAS at LHC), first measurement of LHC b-quark production (CMS); and Upsilon suppression in heavy-ion collisions, providing evidence for the Quark-Gluon Plasma (CMS).

To enable these measurements, he constructed silicon cameras for CLEO and CMS, and currently ATLAS. Instrumental to the approval and success of CLEO-c, he was thrice elected CLEO/CLEO-c co-leader. Ian co-led the LHC Physics Center at Fermilab. Leveraging his silicon expertise, he pioneered U.S. DOE particle-physics involvement in Rubin/LSST, and contributes to development of its 3-Gigapixel CCD camera. He was instrumental in developing UKRI's Quantum Technologies for Fundamental Physics Programme.

He received the IoP's Chadwick Medal in 2019, and is an APS, AAAS and IoP Fellow.