Allan D. Shapiro received a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology from MIT in 1988 and a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Stanford in 1994.  Allan was a predoctoral fellow of the National Science Foundation. He was subsequently a National Institute of Health postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Berkeley from 1994-1997 and then held faculty positions at the University of Delaware and Florida Gulf Coast University.  Allan was honored with a Young Professor Award from DuPont Corporation in 1998.

Allan is an author of 22 scientific papers including one in Nature and one in Science.  He is also an author on one patent and has made 42 major invitational addresses and conference presentations. His research experience has spanned plant, mammalian and microbial systems and has utilized diverse approaches including genetics, enzymology, molecular biology, analytical chemistry, cell and molecular biology and bioinformatics.  He was one of the first plant biologists to collaborate with chemical engineers to apply mathematical modeling techniques from that discipline to complex biological systems. He has also developed and taught numerous biology and chemistry courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels.  Allan has trained 2 Ph.D. students, 4 postdoctoral fellows/visiting scientists, and 17 undergraduate researchers.