Paul Shapiro

Paul Shapiro is the senior director of HSUS’s “factory farming” campaign. Before joining HSUS in 2005, Shapiro worked with the vegan advocacy group Compassion Over Killing (COK) for about 10 years.

In 1995, Shapiro founded COK as a club while he was still a high school student at Georgetown Day School in Washington, DC. While at COK, Shapiro worked as its campaign director to “convert” people to vegetarianism, working alongside Josh Balk and former COK president Miyun Park.

Shapiro has also volunteered with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). At a PETA protest outside one fast food restaurant, he carried a sign that said “The Meat Industry Equals Systematic Murder,” according to the Washington Post. As of 2003, he admitted to having been arrested a half-dozen times and having had to perform 40 hours of community service. The Post mentioned in a 1998 article that Shapiro, then 19, worked for The Fund for Animals, which later merged with HSUS, and had previously worked for PETA.

In 2008, Shapiro was inducted into the “U.S. Animal Rights Hall of Fame.” He is also a former intern with the Washington, DC-based “food police” group the Center for Science in the Public Interest.