John W. Santrock received his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in 1973. He taught at the University of Charleston and the University of Georgia before joining the program in Psychology and Human Development at the University of Texas at Dallas, where he currently teaches a number of undergraduate courses.

John has been a member of the editorial boards of Child Development and Developmental Psychology. His research on father custody is widely cited and used in expert witness testimony to promote flexibility and alternative considerations in custody disputes. John also has authored these exceptional McGraw-Hill texts: Psychology (7th edition), Children (12th edition), Adolescence (14th edition), Life-Span Development (14th edition), and Educational Psychology (5th edition).

For many years John was involved in tennis as a player, a teaching professional, and a coach of professional tennis players. At the University of Miami (Florida), the tennis team on which he played still holds the NCAA Division I record for most consecutive wins (137) in any sport. His wife, Mary Jo, has a master's degree in special education and has worked as a teacher and a Realtor. He has two daughters—Tracy, who is a Realtor, and Jennifer, who is a medical sales specialist. He has one granddaughter, Jordan, age 21, currently an undergraduate student at Southern Methodist University, and two grandsons, Alex, age 8, and Luke, age 7. In the last decade, John also has spent time painting expressionist art.