Although Lucy Shapiro had taken piano lessons since she was four years old, as a youngster she had no illusions about a career as a musician. But she wanted desperately to go to the High School of Music and Art in Harlem in New York City, rather than her local Manual Training High School in Brooklyn, from which only a few students continued on to college. So, at the age of 13, Shapiro sat on the floor of her bedroom every night after her family went to bed and studied from a book called How to Draw. “Fortunately, I had some talent, and I got in,” says Shapiro, now a professor of developmental biology at Stanford University School of Medicine.
Relishing her fine arts courses and focusing on painting in high school, Shapiro was also influenced by her biology teacher, so much so that she double majored in fine arts ...
