Associate Director for Science

Staff Bio

Stuart K. Shapira, MD, PhD

National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities (NCBDDD)

Stuart Shapira

Role at CDC

Stuart K. Shapira, MD, PhD became associate director for science in the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in March 2013. Prior to this role, Dr. Shapira served as a medical officer on the Pediatric Genetics Team in NCBDDD. His research activities included birth defects epidemiology, dysmorphology of autism, gene and nutritional interactions for adverse reproductive outcomes, and newborn screening.

Previous experience

Prior to joining NCBDDD in 2005, Dr. Shapira practiced clinical genetics and metabolic genetics at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio. He currently serves as CDC liaison to the Council on Genetics for the American Academy of Pediatrics, as chairman of the Dysmorphology Workgroup for the Centers for Autism and Developmental Disabilities Research and Epidemiology, and as the CDC representative to the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee.

Dr. Shapira has authored and coauthored more than 100 journal articles, book chapters, and abstracts, and he has been an invited speaker at numerous regional, national, and international scientific conferences.

Education

Dr. Shapira received both his PhD degree in genetics and his MD degree from the University of Chicago. He completed a residency in pediatrics and a clinical fellowship in genetics and metabolism at Boston Childrens Hospital. He also completed dual research fellowships in genetics and metabolism, and in allergy and immunology at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Shapira is board-certified in clinical genetics, biochemical genetics, and molecular genetics.