Gary C. Howard grew up in the coal-mining region of Southern West Virginia. He earned a PhD in biological sciences from Carnegie Mellon University and completed postdoctoral fellowships at Harvard and Johns Hopkins. After spending 11 years in two small biotech companies in the Bay Area, he worked 22 years as a science editor and writer for the Gladstone Institutes in San Francisco. He continues to edit and write books. His most recent book The Biology of Death was published by Oxford University Press.
In 2013, he was appointed to fill a vacancy on the Board of Education of Castro Valley Unified School District. Since then, he was elected in 2014 and reelected in 2018. He and his wife Shirley have lived in Castro Valley for over 28 years and their two daughters attended Proctor, Creekside, and Castro Valley High School before going on to college.
He is active in the Rotary Club of Castro Valley and is on the board of directors of the Castro Valley/Eden Area Chamber of Commerce and is a member of the Alameda County Public Health Commission.
