Dr. Shapiro has been involved with sustainable agricultural and agroforestry systems, plant breeding, molecular biology and genetics for over 40 years. He has worked with indigenous communities, NGO’s, governmental agencies and the private sector around the world. His academic career spanned 15 years, involving graduate student and post-doctoral students exclusively. A former Fulbright Scholar and Ford Foundation Fellow, in 2007 Howard was made a Fellow of the World Agroforestry Centre and authored the IAASTD chapter on Biotechnology and Biodiversity.
He is member of the National Research Council Committee on Citrus and Greening, a founding member of the Keystone Roundtable on Sustainable Agriculture, co-chair of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd World Congress of Agroforestry and is Chairperson of the External Advisory Board of the Agriculture Sustainability Institute at UC Davis. In 2009, he was named recipient of The Award of Distinction from The College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences, UC Davis. He conceived of and led the global effort sequencing, assembling and annotating the Theobroma cacao genome. He is the author of 5 books including: Chocolate, History, Culture and Heritageand Great Moments in Chocolate History.