Economist and President Emeritus of Princeton University and the University of Michigan, is a professor in the Department of Economics and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. His fields of special interest in economics include econometrics, bioethics, science policy and the evolution of postsecondary education.

He joined the faculty of the University of Michigan, where in 1977 he was named Vice President for Academic Affairs and elected President in 1980. In 1988, he took office as President of Princeton University, serving in that position until 2001 when he became President Emeritus.

He continued to teach during his presidencies at both Princeton and Michigan. He served as a member and Vice Chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology from 1990 to 1992 during the administration of President George H. W. Bush. He also served President Bill Clinton’s administration as Chair of the National Bioethics Advisory Commission from 1996 to 2001. ?He is author of several books, including A Larger Sense of Purpose: Higher Education and Society (Princeton University Press, 2005). In 2008, he was awarded the Clark Kerr Medal for Distinguished Leadership in Higher Education, presented annually by the University of California–Berkeley Academic Senate.

He is an elected Member of the Institute of Medicine of the United States National Academy of Sciences and the American Philosophical Society. He is a Fellow of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, an active Member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts, and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

He serves on a number of boards of charitable, medical, and educational institutions, including the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation; Technion–Israel Institute of Technology; the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey; and DeVry Inc., where he is Chairman of the Board.

Dr. Shapiro received his undergraduate degree from McGill University in 1956 and his Ph.D. from Princeton in 1964, both in economics.