Elizabeth Shaw, played by Noomi Rapace, is a character in the films Prometheus and Alien: Covenant.
Shaw is an archaeologist and the central protagonist of Prometheus. After discovering a series of identical cave paintings depicting a star chart with her lover, Charlie Holloway, they convince Weyland Corporation founder Peter Weyland to finance an expedition to a probable origin candidate: the moon LV-223. After arriving at the moon and awakening in 2093 on the ship, the USCSS Prometheus, Shaw and Holloway introduce their theory that the star charts were created by Engineers: a hypothetical, technologically advanced species which created humanity.
Entering the structure covering the Engineer ship, the Juggernaut (near where the Prometheus settled), Shaw discovers many Engineer corpses and a preserved head—proving her and Holloway's theory. After having sex with an infected Holloway, Shaw is impregnated with an extraterrestrial organism which she has surgically removed. She meets Peter Weyland, who had faked his death to remain alive long enough to meet an Engineer in cryosleep so his youth could be restored. After talking to Janek about the Engineers, Shaw concludes that they intended to destroy humanity and joins Weyland's expedition. She is subdued after she demands that an Engineer tell her why they intended to destroy humanity.
After seeing the Engineer decapitate David 8 and kill the expedition's crew, Shaw convinces Janek to sacrifice the Prometheus by flying the ship into the Juggernaut. She returns to the Prometheus' life-support unit, where the Engineer attacks her; he is subdued and impregnated by Shaw's extraterrestrial offspring. David convinces Shaw to return for his head and body so he can pilot another Engineer ship, and she asks him to take them to the Engineer's home world. With a final report to Earth detailing the events, Shaw and David leave the moon. After David, whom Shaw has repaired, unleashes the mutagen against the Engineers and their ship crashes, Shaw sends a transmission of her singing "Take Me Home, Country Roads" by John Denver.
David later confesses to Walter One that she "did not die in the crash", as he initially claimed to the team from the colony ship Covenant, ten years after her disappearance. Walter later finds her dissected corpse, which David had used for his experiments to create a perfect version of the Alien, whilst Daniels finds sketches of what David had done to her.