Lucy Shapiro (born July 16, 1940, New York City) is an American developmental biologist. She is a professor of Developmental Biology at the Stanford University School of Medicine. She is the Virginia and D.K. Ludwig Professor of Cancer Research and the director of the Beckman Center for Molecular and Genetic Medicine.

Shapiro founded a new field in developmental biology, using microorganisms to examine fundamental questions in developmental biology. Her work has furthered understanding of the basis of stem cell function and the generation of biological diversity. Her ideas have revolutionized understanding of bacterial genetic networks and helped researchers to develop novel drugs to fight antibiotic resistance and emerging infectious diseases. In 2013, Shapiro was presented with the 2011 National Medal of Science. for "her pioneering discovery that the bacterial cell is controlled by an integrated genetic circuit functioning in time and space that serves as a systems engineering paradigm underlying cell differentiation and ultimately the generation of diversity in all organisms."

Lucy Shapiro was born in Brooklyn, New York City, the eldest of three daughters. Her mother was an elementary school teacher and her father, a Ukrainian immigrant. She attended New York City's High School of Music and Arts with a major in Fine Arts.

Shapiro enrolled in Brooklyn College with a double major in Fine Arts and Biology and the intention of becoming a medical illustrator. As part of an experimental honors program she was able to design her own curriculum. With the encouragement of Theodore Shedlovsky, she talked her way into an honors organic chemistry class. There her spatial and scientific interests reinforced each other as she visualized the spatial properties of organic molecules in three dimensions. She received her A.B. in Fine Arts and Biology from Brooklyn College in 1962.

In fall 1962 Shapiro was hired as a lab technician by J. Thomas August and Jerard Hurwitz in the department of microbiology at the New York University (NYU) school of medicine. Hurwitz was a co-discoverer of DNA-dependent RNA polymerase. Shapiro was given the task of looking for RNA-dependent RNA polymerase using F2 RNA phage from Norton Zinder. She was successful in detecting the activity of an enzyme copying RNA. In 1963 Shapiro became a graduate student at NYU with Tom August as her advisor. The department subsequently joined the newly created department of molecular biology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Shapiro also attended summer courses at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) on Long Island. Shapiro earned her Ph.D. at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in 1966, with the thesis Replication of bacteriophage RNA.

Shapiro has published reflections on her early days in Brooklyn and on her life in science in the Journal of Biological Chemistry and in the Annual Review of Genetics.

Shapiro initially planned to do postdoctoral work elsewhere, but was offered a faculty position at Einstein by Bernard Horecker. Horecker proposed that she take three months to think about fundamental questions and the direction of her future research life. Shapiro identified positional information as a key research area, asking how spatial information is genetically encoded and translated, to create the three-dimensional organization of a cell and to form different daughter cells through cell division. With how a cell organizes its three-dimensional structure as her focus, Shapiro launched her own lab at Einstein in 1967.

Shapiro remained at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine from 1967–1986, as assistant professor, associate professor, and professor. In 1977, she became chair of the department of molecular biology and in 1981, director of Einstein's division of biological sciences. In 1983, she was named to the Lola and Saul Kramer Endowed Chair in Molecular Biology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, NYC.