Brent R. Stockwell grew up in Bay Terrace, a suburban neighborhood in New York City and graduated from Hunter College High School. He received his A.B. in chemistry and economics from Cornell University, graduating summa cum laude. He received his Ph.D. degree in chemistry, doing his doctoral studies under the supervision of Stuart L. Schreiber at Harvard University. He is a Professor on the Faculty of Arts & Sciences at Columbia University with joint appointments in the Department of Biological Sciences and the Department of Chemistry; he is also a member of the Motor Neuron Center and the Cancer Center at Columbia Medical School.

Dr. Stockwell's research involves the use of chemical tools to define cell death mechanisms in order to better understand and treat cancer and neurodegeneration. Prior to joining the faculty of Columbia University, he was an independent Fellow at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, where he directed his own laboratory, developing new tools to enable the exploration of biology with small molecules.

Dr. Stockwell has received a Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Award at the Scientific Interface (2002), a Beckman Young Investigator Award (2007), an Early Career Scientist appointment of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (2010-2016), the Bioaccelerate NYC Prize (2010), a Lenfest Distinguished Columbia Faculty Award (2014), a National Academies Education Fellowship in the Sciences (2014-2015), and the Great Teacher of Columbia College Award from the Society of Columbia Graduates (2015). Dr. Stockwell is the author of >80 publications, 38 patent applications and 14 issued US patents. His first book, The Quest for the Cure, was published in the Spring of 2011.