This website is about my family’s work for social justice and civil rights

on the House Judiciary Committee and throughout the world,

and my work for thirty-two years as a federal research engineer

with the US Department of Energy and as a civil rights activist in Pittsburgh.

Dr. Douglas Shaffer, MD; Jennie M. Shaffer, VP of the WVEA;

Rev. Dr. Dallas B.  Shaffer; Vera Shaffer PharmD; and Franklin D.

Vera, Douglas and Franklin D.

Dr. Dallas B. Shaffer, US Army Veteran,

Professor of

Political Science,

Episcopal Priest

My father, Dr. Dallas B. Shaffer, was an honorable US Army veteran who served on foreign soil (Guam and Korea); a Professor of US History and Political Science; Chair of the Social Sciences Department at Potomac State College; campaign manager and senior advisor to Attorney Congressman Harley O. Staggers Jr on how the House Judiciary Committee should interact with the Supreme Court; and an Episcopal Priest. He was raised in Keystone, WV, a “coal town” owned by the Keystone Coal Company, population 1000 with 60% “colored.” 

My mother on the steps of the WV Capitol leading the WV teachers’ strike in 1990

Click here to see my father’s publications on the Civil War in WV and a letter to the Honorable Chair of the House Judiciary Committee Peter Rodino.

My mother, Jennie M. Shaffer,was a WV coal miner’s daughter, a high school teacher, Vice President of the West Virginia Education Association (WVEA), and a civil rights activist.

In 1990, my mother and the President of WVEA Kyetta Meadows had 20,000 K-12 teachers walk out of their classrooms and into the streets on an “illegal” strike to shut down the WV school system.  WV teachers were the lowest paid in the United States.  After 11 days in the streets teaching WV Governor Caperton a painful lesson, they got a 15% pay raise and returned to their classrooms to teach children.

Both of my parents were children of coal miners in West Virginia. Every man in their families graduated from high school, served in the U.S. military, then returned home to work in the coal mines of WV. 

Except for my father. He joined the US Army and served in Guam and Korea. When he returned home, he used his GI Bill to get a Degree in History from the University of Richmond.  He then worked as a Teaching Assistant while he earned a PhD in Political Science from West Virginia University.

My mother rallying 5000 striking teachers on the steps of the West Virginia State Capitol, 1990

Click here to learn more.

Every prayer I heard my father say in my life ended with this

“and let us always be mindful of the poor”

He was raised in McDowel County, WV, one of the poorest Counties in the US.

During the Great Depression his family in WV often went without food.

My parents raised me and my little brother to get as much education in the sciences as we could, then to serve our country as federal employees.

ABOUT MY LITTLE BROTHER’S FEDERAL SERVICE

For his education in the sciences, Doug earned a Pharmacy Degree and a Medical Degree from WVU, then a Master’s Degree in Hospital Administration from Duke University. 

He entered federal service with the US Department of Health and Human Services, Center for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta. 

In 2003, he helped Dr. Anthony Fauci start President George W. Bush’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) Program.

To implement the PEPFAR Program, Doug lived in Kenya and Rwanda for 20 years with some of the poorest people in the world suffering from HIV/AIDS.

The PEPFAR program has now saved 25 million lives.

After 27 years of federal service, Doug retired in 2024 as the Associate Director of the US Food and Drug Administration’s Office of Global Policy and Strategy.

The FDA is the largest and most powerful
regulatory agency in the world

Here’s Doug’s new job in the private sector:.

Dr. Douglas N. Shaffer, MD Deputy Director of Global Affairs, International Vaccine Institute

“Doug Shaffer, a public health leader whose heart is as big as Africa itself. We at the FDA Office of Global Strategy & Policy are honored to have had the opportunity to know him as a colleague.”

The International Vaccine Institute

 appoints Dr. Douglas Shaffer as

Deputy Director General of Global Affairs

July 24, 2024 – SEOUL, Republic of Korea – The International Vaccine Institute is pleased to announce that Dr. Douglas Shaffer will join as IVI’s Deputy Director General of Global Affairs & Communications on August 26, 2024.

The International Vaccine Institute accelerates the development of vaccines for poverty-associated infectious diseases that sicken or kill millions of people every year, primarily in low- and middle-income countries. Though they have limited commercial potential, these vaccines are vital to global health. Through training and the transfer of knowledge, technology, and resources, we work with countries to achieve vaccine security and protect their people.

Doug also served as an Attending Physician treating our military personnel at the

Walter Reed National Military Medical Center

AL-QA'IDA NEARLY KILLING MY LITTLE BROTHER

Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri nearly killed my little brother when they sent Al-Qua’ida suicide bombers to simultaneously blow up two US Embassies: one in Nairobi, Kenya, and the other in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. More than 200 were killed and 5000 wounded. Doug worked out of US Embassy in Nairobi. Fortunately his was in Eldoret Kenya that day.

Rescuers search for survivors at the US Embassy, Nairobi

Mom  and Doug in Nairobi

ABOUT OUR CHILDHOOD IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

We were raised in a small town of 4000 souls, Keyser, in West Virginia.

Our family was close with, and worked closely with, Congressman Harley O. Staggers Sr, Chair of the House Committee on Energy & Commerce, and his son Attorney Congressman Harley O. Staggers Jr, House Judiciary Committee.

President Harry Truman campaigning in Keyser to elect Harley O. Staggers Sr to Congress in 1948

First Lady Rosalynn Carter and President Carter with Congressman Staggers Sr & wife Mary Casey Staggers

Congressman Staggers Sr campaigning to elect John F. Kennedy as our 35 ^th President.

For my education in the sciences, I earned a Bachelor of Science Degree and a Master of Science Degree in Mechanical Engineering from WVU.  In 1986, I entered federal service with the US Department of Energy’s Pittsburgh Energy Technology Center. In 1990, I invented, and in 1994 patented ( US Patent 5,333,044 “Fluorescent Image Tracking Velocimetry” ), a flow imaging technology to see and measure the flow of inorganic particles through heat exchangers in electricity generating power plants, and the flow of blood cells in artificial hearts and lungs.   

My US Patent 5,333,044 was made possible by my access to nuclear weapons technologies from the US’s and UK’s premier nuclear weapons labs: the DOE Los Alamos National Laboratory and the UK’s Harwell Atomic Energy Laboratory.

Our Sixth Secretary of Energy

Four Star Admiral James D. Watkins

   
The photo on the right shows Distinguished Dr. Borovetz and Admiral Watkins with me in my lab at the DOE Pittsburgh Energy Technology Center. Harvey was showing The Admiral an artificial heart we were working on, the Novacor Left Ventricular Assist Device. It was in clinical trials at Pittsburgh Presbyterian Hospital, St Louis Medical Center and Stanford Medical Research Institute.  Admiral Watkins was Commander of the Pacific Fleet and a protégé of Admiral Hyman G. Rickover. Rickover is known as the “Father of the Nuclear Navy”

Our Twelfth Secretary of Energy

Nobel Laureate Dr. Steven Chu

   
In the photo, I am seated, NETL Director  Dr. Anthony V. Cugini is on the right, and on the left is Research Chemist Bob Warzinski.
The lady in red is a DOE press handler.

In the center is Secretary of Energy Nobel Laureate Dr Steven Chu.  He is levitating atoms in his hand to show us how he won a Nobel Prize in Physics for inventing a technology to capture and levitate atoms with coherent electromagnetic waves.

Dr. Chu did his Nobel winning research at the
DOE Lawrance Berkeley National Laboratory.

On September 1, 2023, we lost a great champion for our country, our ninth Secretary of Energy
and twenty-first Ambassador to the United Nations

The Honorable Bill Richardson-Lopez III

Click here to see a letter I received from
Secretary of Energy Ambassador Richardson

Jimmy Carter
US Navy Officer
USS Seawolf.

Click here for my tribute and thanks
to my hometown heroes, Congressmen Harley O. Staggers Sr and his son Attorney Congressman Harley O. “Buckey” Staggers Jr, and to a Nuclear Submarine Engineer on the USS Seawolf Nuclear Submarine named Jimmy Carter. When I was 16 years old, their work to end the Energy Crisis of the 1970’s at the Camp David Peace Accords inspired me to become an engineer, then to serve our country in the United States Department of Energy .

Harley Staggers

US Navy Air Navigator, WWII,

In 1977, President Carter and Congressman Staggers Sr (Chair of the House Committee on Energy & Commerce) founded and funded the United States Department of Energy.  The USDOE develops the nuclear fuel that powers our country, our nuclear submarines, aircraft carriers, and other nuclear propelled naval combatants.

ABOUT MY WORK

FOUNDING THE 15TH DOE NATIONAL LABORATORY

I was a member of the Institutional Strategic Planning Team that created the 15th National Laboratory of the United States, the USDOE National Energy Technology Laboratory. 

Click here or on the images below  to see my name on the original charter for the DOE NETL, and a letter from Senator Robert C. Byrd (Senate Majority Leader, Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and Senate Pro Tempore) to a junior WV State Senator, Attorney Harley O. “Buckey” Staggers Jr

“Make no mistake. We will fight this with everything we’ve got for as long as it takes. We will make BP pay for the damage their company has caused, and we will do whatever is necessary to help the Gulf Coast and its people recover from this tragedy.  Because there has never been a leak of this size, at this depth, stopping it has tested the limits of human technology. That's why I assembled a team of our nation's best scientists and engineers to tackle this challenge”   President Barack H. Obama

I was one of those engineers. 

US Coast Guard Admiral Thad W. Allen, National Incident Commander of the Unified Command for the DWH crisis

I was on the lead team responding to the Deepwater Horizon oil leak crisis: the Plume Team of the Flow Rate Technical Group of the National Incident Command .  Our team was led by Dr. Marcia McNutt.  At that time, she was the first woman to serve as the Director of the US Geological Survey since it was founded in 1879.  She is now the first woman to serve as the President of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). The NAS was founded by Abraham Lincoln in 1863 to serve as pro bono “Advisers to the Nation” on all scientific matters

Dr. Marcia McNutt

then Director of the US Geological Survey, now President of the National Academy of Sciences

The Plume Team of the National Incident Command at the
NOAA Command Center in Seattle.  Dr. McNutt is in the middle.
I am on the far right.

An award from the Director of the US Geological Survey for my
“Exemplary Service to the Nation”

Prof. Ömer Savaş, UC Berkeley

About my research on deep sea oil leaks at Naval Weapons Station Earle, UC Berkeley, and the
USDOE National Energy Technology Laboratory.

My work at Naval Weapons Station Earle was funded ($738,000) by the USDOI Bureau of Safety & Environmental Enforcement (BSEE).

BSEE is a federal law enforcement agency.

Dr. Ray Cocco

CEO of PSRI

• Click here to see my Contract with BSEE
• Click here to see my Final Report to BSEE

For five years I was under a Litigation Hold by the Department of Justice in the DOJ v. BP Multi District Litigation 2179 “Oil Spill by the Oil Rig Deepwater Horizon” case in the US District Court for Eastern Louisiana, The Honorable US District Court Judge Carl J. Barbier presiding .

Click here to see the DOJ Litigation Hold

Click here for more about the important role I played in stopping the damage being done to 1000 miles of US shoreline of five Gulf States, and in causing British Petroleum to be fined $20.8 billion.  It is the largest single fine of a single entity in US history

Those funds went to the fifty million people of five Gulf states to recover and rebuild from the damage done by British Petroleum.  The technology of my US Patent 8,391,552 was a critically important tool I used. On April 22, 2010, two days after the DWH rig exploded, I asked DOE Patent Attorney Jay Potts to submit the patent application.

Independent experts reviewed my US Patent 8,391,552 and found it to be
“something the petrochemical industry had sought for 50 years”

About being married to a German Jew who lost family in the holocaust, and being attacked immediately after the massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue (pdf)

About getting “papers” for Russian Jewish scientists who were the subject of antisemitic persecution in Moscow.  The Tree of Life brought them to the US

ALL GAVE SOME

SOME GAVE ALL

A tribute to the great Vietnam Veterans
I knew, loved, and worked with, including
US Air Force Pilot Joe Kittinger.  He was in the cell next to John McCain at the Hanoi Hilton

YOU ARE NOT

FORGOTTEN

My colleague and friend for 30 years, Lieutenant Colonel Dr. Brack Hattler, MD, PhD,was a battlefield surgeon in Vietnam, Chief of Organ Transplant Services at Walter Reed , and Chief of Lung Transplantation at Presbyterian Hospital in Pittsburgh.

Click here for more about my work with Lt. Colonel Dr. Hattler

About my Cooperative Research and Development Agreements
including the first CRADA between the USDOE and an outside organization,
the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine .

Thomas Merton

About my work as a civil rights activist in Pittsburgh with the Thomas Merton Center and as an Executive Officer in the American Federation of Government Employees, Local 1916 (pdf).

Dorothy Day

About my work forecasting the US economy and energy sectors
twenty-five years into the future using the DOE Energy Information Administration’sNational Energy Modeling System

Saturn V Engine

Click here for more about the applications of my US Patents 5,333,044 &8,391,552,including my work on the world’s first micro-turbine heart pump. It was invented by the great rocket engineer Kenneth Clark Butler.

FUN FACT: Ken was an engineer on the team at Aerojet Rocketdyne that developed the main engine for the Saturn V rocket

that sent the first three astronauts to the moon.

Anthony with wife Julianne
and their children

Anthony was a devout Roman Catholic. On January 8, 2014, Anthony commited suicide in a barren woodland near the Pittsburgh site of the DOE NETL. I believe this to be the work of the NETL Law Department.

Anthony with granddaughter

If you are having thoughts of ending your life, there is help available. Please call or text 988 or just
click here to chat with someone who understands.