Ryan Noah Shapiro is a doctoral candidate at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a U.S. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) researcher and an advocate for animal rights. Shapiro's bacheloreate and graduate studies have dealt extensively with the history of vegetarianism and the animal rights movement; his first publication was an in-depth review of James Gregory's seminal "Of Victorians and Vegetarians: The Vegetarian Movement In Nineteenth-Century Britain". His forthcoming doctoral dissertation is titled "Bodies at War: Animals, The Freedom of Science, and National Security in the United States, 1899-1979" and will focus on the conflict between ethical concerns over animal rights and concerns with national security within the United States. In addition to the dissertation, a historical map of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's handling of the animal rights movement is also in development. Both projects rely on large amounts of information that, while not necessarily Classified, can only be made public once formally requested through an FOIA requests. When the U.S. government has refused to process those requests or provided data that is highly redacted or presumed to be manipulated, Shapiro has pursued repeated litigation that has been widely publicized. Shapiro is regarded by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) as the "most prolific" FOIA requester, and the FBI has claimed that his requests for information through the FOIA are "irreparably damag[ing] to national security."