Peter Haywood Shaw was born in the Bronx, New York and grew up in Chappaqua, New York north of New York City. He attended Haverford College in Pennsylvania where he majored in anthropology and learned to love rugby football. After graduation he attended medical school at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and embarked on a medical career in pediatrics, where he is rarely the most immature person in the room. He is currently a full-time pediatric hematologist/oncologist living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with his wife, three children and dog named ... Rugby.