John grew up in Ft. Lauderdale, FL but escaped to cold weather and seasons as soon as he could. He went to Boston College where he experienced several “Blizzards of the Century” so quickly began to appreciate beach weather much more than he had. In college he got his first taste of research by working with Dr. Michael Numan (Psychology) studying the neural circuits underlying maternal avoidance in rats. He graduated in 1998 and spent a year working in Research and Development at NEN Life Sciences (now Perkin Elmer) developing research reagents, including some that his own lab still uses. In 1999 he started his PhD in Neuroscience at Washington University in the lab of Dr. David Holtzman (Neurology) studying Alzheimer’s disease. At this point, John still had hair. Much of his PhD work focused on the proteins and cellular pathways that eliminate amyloid-beta (Aβ) from the brain. Here he developed the first use of in vivo microdialysis to study Aβ kinetics in the brain of a living mouse. This was the first time someone was able to measure Aβ peptide longitudinally. In the Holtzman lab he realized the importance and value of collaboration, having worked with numerous departments across the university as well as outside groups and industries. This is something he still feels very strongly about. John received his PhD in 2005, then became a post-doc in the lab of Dr. Steven Mennerick (Psychiatry) where he learned to pretend to be an electrophysiologist to study synaptic processes that regulate Aβ generation. This is pretty much when John lost his hair. He started his own laboratory (Neurology) at WashU in 2010, received tenure in 2015, and serves on more committees and review panels than he wishes to think about. 

John and his life partner, Sandra, have a 12 year old son, Ben. The trio enjoys playing and traveling, especially if it involves a train. Luckily, John and Ben are roughly the same emotional age so they get along very well, often to the embarrassment of his wife.