How do I use field_view_field() to print a user profile picture?
Try this

&lt;div class="author-block"&gt;
  &lt;h4&gt;Meet the author&lt;/h4&gt;
  &lt;?php print drupal_render(field_view_field('user', $user, 'picture', array('settings' =&gt; array('image_style' =&gt; 'user-pic-style'))));?&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;