Jack Brook is a journalist and a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Brown University. Fascinated by the ways narratives are produced and contested, and how that informs our present, he studied for a degree in history. At Brown, he developed a passion for environmental histories, learning to analyze human societies through their relationship to the natural world, energy production and other life forms. Growing up in Palo Alto with his mother, Jack was inspired by her accounts of her job as a social worker and rehabilitation officer in a Santa Clara jail. He volunteered as a teacher in the Rhode Island prison system throughout his undergraduate career. Through his reporting, he has tried to deconstruct and illuminate the structures, policies and values that perpetuate racism, poverty and the prison industrial complex. He wrote for the Brown Daily Herald, was an editor at The Indy magazine, and spent a year on a team investigating elder abuse for The Providence Journal. He has sought out international reporting experiences, covering unrest in the West Bank for the Jerusalem Post and environmental challenges in Chile for the Santiago Times, for which he was awarded an Overseas Press Club Scholarship.
After graduation, he interned at The Miami Herald and The Marshall Project, an outlet investigating the criminal justice system, and continues to serve as a contributing editor for the Brown Alumni Magazine. An aspiring long-form narrative journalist, Jack hopes to confront the exploitative forces that perpetuate both mass incarceration and the climate crisis. Sponsored by a grant from the Pulitzer Center, he is currently reporting the story of South America’s largest toxic waste tailings dam and the Chilean village that fought against it for decades. He has also produced a range of documentary and fictional films, including a mockumentary on a competitive eating prodigy, “The Voracious Appetite of Chowhound Chambers.” In his spare time, he enjoys journaling, hiking and getting lost in new places.
