Brock completed her undergraduate degree in chemistry at the University of Washington. She was a graduate student at the University of California, Davis, where she investigated structure-property relationships in pnictide oxide compounds under the supervision of Susan M. Kauzlarich. During her doctorate she made use of powder diffraction and magnetic susceptibility measurements. Brock was a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Connecticut where she worked with Steven Suib on the use of manganese oxide nanocrystalline materials.