Brian E. Volck, MD, was born in Cincinnati. He worked as a general pediatrician for the Indian Health Service from 1989-1994, at a Federally Qualified Community Health Center from 1994-1996, and with a university-based medicine/pediatrics residency program from 1996-2009. His global health service includes medical work in Honduras and the Navajo Nation.

His medical education innovations include: founding and teaching a medical student elective on literature and medicine; planning and serving as co-founding faculty in the Initiative in Poverty, Justice and Health, which introduces medical students and primary-care residents to the care of persons in poverty; and assisting in the development of a global child health track within the pediatric residency program.

He is a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Native American Child Health, which conducts site visits to hospitals and medical centers providing care to American Indians and Alaska Natives and advocates for the health of Native Children. He is the US Chairperson for the Fifth International Meeting on Indigenous Child Health, scheduled for April, 2013, in Portland, Oregon. He is currently researching and writing a book on inherited diseases and the intersection of culture, health, and history in the Navajo.