John Cook earned a Ph.D. in mathematics from The University of Texas at Austin. After completing a postdoc at Vanderbilt University, he left academia to work as a software developer and consultant. He then worked for over a decade at MD Anderson Cancer Center as a software project manager, research statistician, and adjunct faculty at The University of Texas Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. He left MD Anderson to found Singular Value Consulting, a consultancy focused on mathematical modeling and scientific computation.