John Brock, PhD

About

Dr. John Brock comes from a long line of unsuccessful farmers who, fortunately, believed in the value of education. He is a proud first-generation high school and college graduate. After undergraduate school, Dr. Brock worked in industry for five years automating laboratories with robotic systems and studying computer science. In graduate school at Emory University, he studied analytical chemistry and neurotoxicology while also working at the National Center for Environmental Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). 

After graduate school, Dr. Brock accepted a post-doctoral fellowship to study atmospheric chemistry and human health at the University of Colorado Boulder. After Colorado, he returned to Atlanta to supervise a research group working on cancer studies analyzing organochlorine pesticides and PCBs in human sera. During this time, his research group developed novel methods to analyze urinary phthalate metabolites using liquid chromatography coupled to a triple quadrupole mass spectrometer. In 2001, Dr. Brock left the CDC for family reasons and became a professor at Warren Wilson College. He moved to UNCA in 2016 and helped establish a new liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry laboratory. In addition to teaching at UNC Asheville, he is an Adjunct Professor for the Public Health Leadership Program at the Gillings School of Public Health, UNC Chapel Hill. Mentoring young scientists is one of his greatest joys.