Elizabeth Shaughnessy

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Elizabeth Shaughnessy (born 1937) is an Irish chess player and trainer who regularly represents the national team at the Chess Olympiad. She has resided in Berkeley, California, in the United States for more than 30 years.

By profession, she is a trained architect, having completed a 6 year course at the National University of Ireland, University College Dublin. For several years she practiced architecture in Belgrade, London and Dublin, before marrying and moving to California.

Shaughnessy, a former Irish Women's Champion, runs the Berkeley Chess School which teaches chess and hold chess camps in the Summer. She was twice elected to the Berkeley School Board.

In 2004, she was elected to the Executive Board of the United States Chess Federation in a special election for a one year term to replace a director who had resigned. Her one year on the board proved to be controversial, when she was accused of serving as a rubber-stamp to the decisions by President Beatriz Marinello to move the USCF headquarters to Crossville, Tennessee. Also of controversy was her endorsement of brainspeed, a drug made by a company called "Natrol," that promises to improve chess play by enhancing the functioning of the user's brain.

Shaughnessy failed in her attempt to gain re-election in July 2005. Shortly thereafter she resigned as President of the California Chess Association.